XVI 



BIRD LIFE IN AN OLD APPLE-TREE 



n^T EAR my study there used to stand several old 

 -^^ apple-trees that bore fair crops of apples, but 

 better crops of birds. Every year these old trees 

 were the scenes of bird incidents and bird histories 

 that were a source of much interest and amusement. 

 Young trees may be the best for apples, but old 

 trees are sure to bear the most birds. If they are 

 very decrepit, and full of dead and hollow branches, 

 they will bear birds in winter as well as summer. 

 The downy woodpecker wants no better place than 

 the brittle, dozy trunk of an apple-tree in which 

 to excavate his winter home. My old apple-trees 

 are all down but one, and this one is probably an 

 octogenarian, and I am afraid cannot stand another 

 winter. Its body is a mere shell not much over one 

 inch thick, the heart and main interior structure 

 having turned to black mould long ago. An old 

 tree, unlike an old person, as long as it lives at all, 

 always has a young streak, or rather ring, in it. It 

 wears a girdle of perpetual youth. 



My old tree has never yet failed to yield me a 

 bushel or more of gillyflowers, and it has turned out 

 at least a dozen broods of the great crested flycatcher, 



