AMERICAN OUNITIIOLOGY. 386 



and while his attacks lacked the vim that he had first put into them, he 

 always drove the Wren away at every opportunity, even when his own 

 young- were large enough to leave the nest. 



One morning when we called on our two acquaintances, for they were 

 now not in the least timid and would be apparently unmindful of our 

 presence when only a few feet away, we found that both Downies were 

 very busy supplying the wants of a nest full of little ones that had 

 hatched during the previous day. For the first time since finding them 

 we examined the nests of both the Wren and the Downy; the former 

 we found to contain six eggs, the nest being only a few inches down in 

 the stump which was inclined to the ground at quite a sharp angle; the 

 front portion of this nest was built high so that it was impossible to see 

 the contents without pressing it down with a stick. The outside por- 

 tion was made almost wholly of sticks, while feathers formed the larger 

 part of the inside. The Downies home was a more dii^cult one to ex- 

 plore. The entrance was exactly an inch and a quarter in diameter and 

 was as round as though bored with an auger. They figured about as 

 closely as possible when drilling this hole for there was no spare room 

 when they were entering, their wings being forced closely down^against 

 their sides; inside the stump it widened to about four inches in diameter, 

 thus making a very cosey home for their young. In order to see the 

 bottom of the nest we had to have recourseto two mirrors, one a strip 

 of glass an inch wide and the other an ordinary mirror to reflect light 

 into the hole by means of the first which was held inside; by this 

 means we found that there were four naked little ones lying at the 

 bottom of the hole on a bed of chips which had fallen within while the 

 house was being built. 



While we were looking over the nests a shrill whistle and then mut- 

 tered grumblings coming from somewhere down in the groundwere our 

 first intimation that we were intruding on the premises of a Chipmunk. 

 We subsequently found that he too hak hid troubles occasionally. All 

 was well while he kept his place on the ground floor but when he ven- 

 tured up on the stump, either the Wren or Woodpecker would be sure to 

 see and try to dislodge him. It was comparatively easy for him to dodge 

 the Woodpecker for they are not very agile while on the wing, but with 

 the Wren it was a different matter, for by using both wings and feet he 

 could scramble around the trunk even faster than could the Chipmunk. 

 His attacks were very furious and were accompanied by a violent chat- 

 tering sound, and he rarely failed to drive away his four footed neigh- 

 bor. 



