120 Birds of Lakeside and Prairie 



it. He laughed, and walking over, looked into the cavity. 

 There, snuggling down into their straw-lined nest, were four 

 young bluebirds almost fully fledged and apparently about 

 ready for their first flight in life. When Mr. and Mrs. Blue- 

 bird saw that their home was discovered, their trouble was 

 great. The madame dropped the choice morsel intended for 

 her young and called plaintively. We had no intention of 

 harrying that birch-tree home. We backed away from it as 

 quietly and as quickly as we could, and in a few minutes had 

 the satisfaction of seeing Mrs. Bluebird pay her family a visit. 

 If she had not recovered the grub which she had intended as 

 a bit of breakfast for her offspring, she had found another 

 exceeding quick, for we saw her feed the babes before the 

 bushes shut off our view of the hole in the birch. 



On our way back to breakfast we passed a pigsty. It 

 was just like all other pigsties in the round world. There 

 was plenty of wallowing room and plenty of mud for the 

 porkers. The manager of the English Lake club-house had 

 paid a visit to this pen early one morning, and there in the 

 mud, in the very center of the circling pigs, was a cardinal 

 grosbeak, singing his sweet notes to an audience that could 

 do nothing but grunt its approval. Surely this was a literal 

 casting of pearls before swine. 



It was still early morning when we took a boat and poled 

 our way down the grass-grown inlet toward the sweeping 

 Kankakee. As we made our way laboriously along the little 

 waterway we flushed a solitary sandpiper that flew away 

 reluctantly from a choice feeding-ground. Glancing back, I 

 saw the bird return to the spot before we were a dozen yards 

 away. A Baltimore oriole flew over our heads, carrying nest- 

 ing material. I watched the bird to see where it was going 



