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mine, yielding some kind of food or fuel or shelter. 

 And every foot, yes, every foot, is Nature's ; as en- 

 tirely hers as when the thick primeval forest stood 

 here. The apple trees are hers as much as mine, and 

 she has an average of ten different bird families, liv- 

 ing in them every spring. A pair of crows and a pair 

 of red-tailed hawks are nesting in the woodlot ; there 

 are at least three families of chipmunks in as many 

 of my stone piles ; a fine old tree toad (his fourth 

 season now) sleeps on the porch under the climbing 

 rose ; a hornet's nest hangs in a corner of the eaves ; 

 a small colony of swifts thunder in the chimney ; 

 swallows twitter in the hayloft ; a chipmunk and a 

 half -tame gray squirrel feed in the barn ; and — to 

 bring an end to this bare beginning — under the roof 

 of the pig-pen dwell this pair of phoebes. 



To make a bird house of a pig-pen, to divide it be- 

 tween the pig and the bird — this is as far as Nature 

 can go, and this is certainly enough to redeem the 

 whole farm. For she has not sent an outcast or a 

 scavenger to dwell in the pen, but a bird of character, 

 however much he may lack in song or color. Phoebe 

 does not make up well in a picture ; neither does he 

 perform well as a singer ; there is little to him, in 



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