FIRST WEEK] 



December 



309 



The chickadee goes a step further, and shows his clever- 

 ness in sometimes choosing a cavity already made, and 

 instead of rough, bare chips, the six or eight chickadee 

 youngsters are happy on a hair mattress of a closely woven 

 felt-like substance. 



Perhaps we should consider the kingfisher the most 



NEST OF CATBIRD 



barbarous of all the birds which form a shelter for their 

 home. With bill for pick and shovel, she bores straight 

 into a sheer clay bank, and at the end of a six-foot tunnel 

 her young are reared, their nest a mass of fish bones the 

 residue of their dinners. Then there are the aerial masons 

 and brickmakers the eave swallows, who carry earth 

 up into the air, bit by bit, and attach it to the eaves, 



