ers, also bread and cheese crumbs, hemp and sunflower seeds 

 and I sometimes crack a few butternuts. 



The only birds that eat the hemp and sunflower seeds are 

 the nuthatches and chickadees. These birds are not on the 

 list as seed eaters, but they surely love and eat these seeds in 

 winter. It is amusing to see how they manage to eat the seed. 

 The nuthatch takes them in his bill and flies away to the tree, 

 places the seed in the bark to hold it and raps away at it until 

 the shell opens ; then he swallows it and comes back for more. 

 The chickadee picks the seed from the cup, carries it to a 

 small branch on the tree, places the seed under its foot and 

 holds it down on the branch with its claws and raps away with 

 its bill until the shell is broken, then it swallows the seed and 

 returns to the cup for more. The nuthatch and chickadee love 

 the butternut meats and cheese crumbs. Blue jays eat bread 

 crumbs, suet, corn and other grains. 



The downy woodpeckers come to feed on the suet at times 

 all summer. They feed their young from it and as soon as 

 their babies can fly they bring them to the suet and coax them 

 near to it. Then the mother bird picks off pieces of suet and 

 places it in the babies' mouths. This teaches the babies how 

 to eat also, as in a very short time I find the babies eating 

 away at the suet all alone. I have found this sort of feeding 

 the winter birds a success for over thirteen years and keep 

 the birds with us all winter. 



The tree swallows have had their home in the "Castle" 

 every year since the purple martins met their fate in June, 

 1903. Nearly all the birds about Fern Cottage this season 

 have been successful in rearing their young. Two pairs of 

 robins built their nest near by. One pair we watched build 

 their nest in an elm near our bedroom window. They la- 

 bored faithfully and completed the nest. The robin was on 

 the nest for several days, then left it for some reason. In 

 a day or so later I saw them building another nest in a tree 

 near the elm. In a few weeks I saw them feeding their 

 young at the last nest made. 



A pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks built their nest on the 

 terrace (in the grove), some forty feet from the summer 

 house, on a low tree. It was so located we could see them 

 building their little home. x-\s soon as incubating commenced 

 it was interesting to see the actions of the male bird. He 



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