AMERICAN OBNITHOLOGY. 303 



getting along. The stump had been blown over, but the eggs were 

 safe. We pressed it down into the mud so that it was once more up- 

 right. Now we watched with renewed interest. Our patience was re- 

 warded before long by finding that the little birds were hatched. 

 Every day we went to visit our little family, and saw father and mother 

 feeding the babies. They grew rapidly and we saw the little black 

 heads thrust up reaching for the food, we thought they would soon be 

 able to fly. One Sunday when we went to pay our daily visit, the old 

 birds seemed to be unusually agitated; one of them flew in front of the 

 nest and fluttered there without going in. We could not; see the ba- 

 bies as plainly as usual, the nest did not seem so full. We wondered 

 if the older birds could be teaching them to fly. We 'walked on and 

 all the time that we were observing other things we heard the very 

 loud call of the chickadees. On our way back we stopped opposite the 

 nest, when, to our surprise and horror we saw coming out from the 

 opening a little red squirrel who ran away as fast as possible upon see- 

 ing us. We thought our baby chickadee had come to an untimely end. 

 The poor little mother was fluttering about calling "chick-a-dee-dee" 

 in such a distressed tone, and a catbird, vireo, redstart and other chick- 

 adees had come to help her sound the alarm. We felt so sorry for her, 

 after all her trials and tribulations to lose her babies in this way, but 

 much to our delight we found next day that three of the babies were 

 safe, and now they have flown away and we can no longer m.a,ke our 

 daily calls, as the little house is empty. 



Margarette H. Price. 



LOON. 



