€i}t BcKi of i^t &<xxC^ 



grosbeak, and that I was about to get a clue to its 

 nest. Then up to the slab where he ate the June- 

 bugs scrambled the chipmunk, and the rose-red spot 

 on the breast of the grosbeak dissolved into a big 

 scarlet-red strawberry. And by its long wedge shape 

 I knew it was one of my new variety. 



I hurried across to the patch and found every 

 berry gone, while a line of bloody fragments led me 

 back to the orchard wall, where a half dozen fresh 

 calyx crowns completed my second discovery. 



No, it did not complete it. It took a little watching 

 to find out that the whole family — all seven ! — were 

 after berries. They were picking them half ripe, even, 

 and actually storing them away, canning them down 

 in the cavernous depths of the stone pile ! 



Alarmed .? Yes, and I was wrathful, too. The taste 

 for strawberries is innate, original ; you can't be 

 human without it. But joy in chipmunks is a culti- 

 vated liking, aesthetic in its nature. What chance in 

 such a circumstance has the nature-lover with the 

 human man } What shadow of doubt as to his choice 

 between the chipmunks and the strawberries ? 



I had no gun then and no time to go over to my 

 neighbor's to borrow his. So I stationed myself near 



178 



