NEW GLEANINGS IN OLD FIELDS 



when a pine or hemlock forest is cut away, oaks and 

 chestnuts are so Ukely to spring up. These nuts 

 can be disseminated only by the aid of birds and 

 squirrels. 



A clergyman writes me from a New England 

 town of something he found in his winter walks that 

 puzzled him very much. It was an old cocoon of the 

 cecropia moth, in which he found two kernels of 

 corn. What creature could have put them there, and 

 for what purpose ? Of course it was the blue jay; he 

 had hidden the corn in the same blind way that he 

 hides the acorns. I have seen jays in winter carry 

 away corn and put it into an old worm's nest in a 

 wild-cherry tree, and drop it into knot-holes in the 

 tree trunk. It is doubtful if the jay can digest corn 

 swallowed whole. It is too hard a grist for his mill. 

 He will peck out the chit or softer germinal part, as 

 will the chickadee, and devour that. 



Another teacher wrote me that two pretty birds, 

 strangers to her, had built their nest in a pear-tree 

 near the kitchen door of her house. 



They were small and slender, the male of a ruddy 

 brown, his head, tail, and wings black, and the fe- 

 male yellowish green, with darker wings. The male 

 brought worms and fed his mate while she was sit- 

 ting, and seemed the happiest bird alive, save when 

 the kittens romped about the door ; and then, even 

 in the midst of his cries of alarm like a blackbird's, 

 he would burst out with glad notes of rejoicing, a 



1G7 



