CHICKADEE 71 



and only half-heartedly at that! Hers was the real 

 interest, the real anxiety. To be a Mr. Chickadee 

 and show off! That's the thing! 



I sat a long time watching the work. It went on 

 in perfect silence, not a chirp, not the sound of a 

 fluttering wing. The swamp along whose margin the 

 birds were building had not a joyous atmosphere. 

 Damp, dim-shadowed, and secret, it seemed to have 

 laid its spell upon the birds. Their very color of 

 gray and black was as if mixed out of the dusky 

 colors of the swamp ; their noiseless coming and going 

 was like the slipping to and fro of small shadows. 

 They were a part of the swamp of its life, of its 

 color, of its silence. They were children of the 

 swamp, sharing its very spirit, and that sharing was 

 their defense, the best protection that they could 

 have had. 



It didn't save their nest, however. They felt 

 and obeyed the spirit of the Swamp in their own 

 conduct, but the Swamp did not tell them where to 

 build. Birds and animals have wonderful instinct, 

 or family wisdom, but not much personal, individual 

 wisdom. 



It was about three weeks later when I stopped again 

 under the pine and found the birch stub in pieces 

 upon the ground. Some strong wind had come, or 

 some robber had been after the eggs, and had 

 brought the whole house tumbling down. 



But this is not the fate of all such birch-bark 



