Home Life 



fresh fish. Does any other hird possess this curious 

 ability to run forward and backward like a reversible 

 steam engine? Surely not unless it lives in a narrow 

 tunnel. 



The distracted oven-bird, feigning a broken wing 

 as she crosses your path in the woods, invites pity or 

 perhaps destruction, if only you will spare those 

 speckled treasures which she thinks you know must 

 be somewhere near although, but for her frantic 

 performance, you might not have discovered the well- 

 concealed nest. Sir Christopher Wren, by the very 

 exuberance of his bubbling, continuous song, betrays 

 the precious secret that Jenny, by her excited scold- 

 ings, no better conceals. But the bobolink, swaying 

 on a stalk of timothy in the meadow, and singing 

 with rollicking abandon, is quite as clever as the 

 ventriloquial yellow-throat in luring you from his 

 nest hidden in the grassy jungle. How jealously 

 the true bird-lover likewise learns to guard nest 

 secrets ! The best children in the world can't be 

 trusted with them. 



Some boys in North Carolina robbed a crow's 

 nest and kept the fledglings hung in a cage in their 

 garden. The distracted parents visited the place 

 hourly, brought food to their young and tried in 

 vain to break open the wire prison. Finally, in 

 despair, they dropped poisonous berries through 

 the bars : it was evidently easier for them to see 

 their babies dead than prisoners of the enemy. 



89 



