FIELD AND STUDY 



Bird-life is the fullest and most intense during 

 the mating and nesting season. Love or war, court- 

 ing or "scrapping,'* rule their activities. What jeal- 

 ousies and rivalries, what warring and winning, go 

 on all about us ! The birds are all glad and mad at 

 the same moment. 



One morning in April I heard the excited voices 

 of bluebirds and robins in the vineyard below me; 

 going down there, I saw a pair of bluebirds and a 

 pair of robins flitting about and perching on the 

 wires and posts in an angry and excited frame of 

 mind. Some of their movements and gestures sug- 

 gested that they were "scrapping." " But why should 

 bluebirds and robins * scrap '? " I asked myself. I had 

 never seen them do such a thing, so I began looking 

 about for a common enemy, and expected to find a 

 cat skulking in a ditch there, or maybe a snake. 

 But I could find neither; still the excited and accus- 

 ing voices kept it up. Then I chanced to see some 

 dry grass and weed-stalks hanging down from a 

 grape-post which was splintered and broken at the 

 top. I found that the robins were building a nest 

 there in a ragged depression on the top of the post, 

 and that a foot and a half lower down the bluebirds 

 had preempted a downy woodpecker's old hole, and 

 were making a nest there. The fracas was explained; 

 neither pair of birds wanted the other such near 

 neighbors. Each looked upon the post as its own. I 

 saw that the robins had made a bad choice; no cover 



66 



