114 BIRDS'-NESTS. 



son, their cousins, the nuthatches, chickadees, and 

 brown creepers, fall heir to them. These birds, espe- 

 cially the creepers and nuthatches, have many of the 

 habits of the picidce, but lack their powers of bill, and 

 so are unable to excavate a nest for themselves. 

 Their habitation, therefore, is always second-hand. But 

 each species carries in some soft material of various 

 kinds, or, in other words, furnishes the tenement to its 

 liking. The chickadee arranges in the bottom of the 

 cavity a little mat of a light felt-like substance, which 

 looks as if it came from the hatter's, but which is prob- 

 ably the work of numerous worms or caterpillars. On 

 this soft lining the female deposits six white eggs. 



I recently discovered one of these nests in a most 

 interesting situation. The tree containing it, a variety 

 of the wild-cherry, stood upon the brink of the bald 

 summit of a high mountain. Gray, time-worn rocks lay 

 piled loosely about, or overtoppled the just visible by- 

 ways of the red fox. The trees had a half-scared look, 

 and that indescribable wildness which lurks about the 

 tops of all remote mountains possessed the place. 

 Standing there I looked down upon the back of the 

 red-tailed hawk as he flew out over the earth beneath 

 me. Following him, my eye also took in farms and 

 settlements and villages and other mountain ranges 

 that grew blue in the distance. 



The parent birds attracted my attention by appear- 

 ing with food in their beaks, and by seeming much put 

 out. Yet so wary were they of revealing the locality of 



