BIRD ENEMIES. U 



ander the eaves of the house, and all appeared to go 

 well till the young were nearly fledged, when the nest 

 suddenly became a bit of purgatory. The birds kept 

 their places in their burning bed till they could hold 

 )ut no longer, when they leaped forth and fell dead 

 -Upon the ground. 



After a delay of a week or more, during which 1 

 Imagine the parent birds purified themselves by every 

 means known to them, the couple built another nest a 

 few yards from the first, and proceeded to rear a sec- 

 ond brood ; but the new nest developed into the same 

 bed of torment that the first did, and the three young 

 birds, nearly ready to fly, perished as they sat within 

 it. The parent birds then left the place as if it had 

 been accursed. 



I imagine the smaller birds have an enemy in our 

 Dative white-footed mouse, though I have not proof 

 enough to convict him. But one season the nest of a 

 chickadee which I was observing was broken up in a 

 position where nothing but a mouse could have reached 

 it. The bird had chosen a cavity in the limb of an ap- 

 ple-tree which stood but a few yards from the house. 

 The cavity was deep, and the entrance to it, which was 

 ten feet from the ground, was small. Barely light 

 enough was admitted, when the sun was in the most 

 favorable position, to enable one to make out the num- 

 r/er of eggs, which was six, at the bottom of the dim 

 Interior. While one was peering in and trying to get 

 nis head out of his own light, the bird would startle 

 him by a queer kind of puffing sound. She would 

 Dot leave her nest like most birds, but really tried to 

 blow, or scare, the intruder away ; and after repeated 

 experiments I could hardly refrain from jerking my 

 Head back when that little explosion of sound came ud 



