The Seamy Side of Bird-Life 



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ever much utility it may serve, secondarily, in 

 providing some other creature with needed food. 

 Bright and lissome, gay and careless as our 

 birds seem to be, their lives are burdened by 

 dread, and that which should be the most joy- 

 ous season is most frequently fraught with 

 sorrow. 



Yesterday, for example, we found dead in the 

 road a fledgling, beaten down, chilled and de- 

 stroyed by the cold rains that for two or three 

 days have pelted the earth. Undoubtedly many 

 such an accident has happened, and it is proba- 

 ble that in hundreds of nests the young have 

 been drowned, or chilled, or starved to death 

 by this same unseasonable storm. 



I remember that once a foolish chickadee nes- 

 tled in the top of a hollow stump, where her 

 chamber was a perfect pocket, and while she 

 was sitting a tremendous rain fell. I am sure 

 her brood would have been drowned in their 

 bed had I not thought of them and fixed a 

 temporary pent-house to shield their domicile. 



Long-continued rains do immense damage to 

 the robins' early mud-built nests by melting 



