38 WITH THE WOODLANDERS. 



kind lad who had saved him from a cruel and 

 lingering death, he held his head down, humped 

 his shoulders up, and uttered a weak quavering jar- 

 kee-kee ! which appealed irresistibly to me, so that 

 he was forthwith taken in to be comforted and 

 coddled up. Here he is now, and he has all the 

 little ways of a spoilt child, giving way to temper 

 at times in the most ludicrous manner possible. He 

 gets into mischief very frequently, so that the 

 mistress declares that she does not know what he 

 will come to. 



Although so many different forms of life will make 

 their habitat in the same old tree, or use it as a 

 place of shelter, either for purposes of rest or for 

 breeding in, yet each individual creature knew his 

 own side of the house, so to speak, and how to keep 

 it. Yet I have watched most amusing squabbles 

 amongst them. As soon as the young jackdaws 

 could perch, you might see them all out on one 

 of the tree limbs nearest the hole they had been 

 hatched out in. If the green woodpecker, in shin- 

 ning up and round the trunk, poked his crimson 

 topped head up near the branch they were sitting 

 on, dire would be the commotion that ensued. The 



