BIRD LEGEND AND LIFE 



look behind, then hurrying upward faster than before. Their 

 playtimes were brief, however, for the unfinished burrow was 

 calling. 



When this was completed and later a half dozen or more 

 eggs were laid, though madam spent most of her time in dis- 

 pensing warmth to them, her mate also did his share. To- 

 gether they had devoted their energies to providing for the 

 little ones that pecked their way out of the round, white eggs. 

 Many long journeys were they compelled to take and many 

 were the hours spent in search of suitable food for their hun- 

 gry offspring; but on their return, their throats were always 

 full to the brim with the nourishment which they pumped 

 into infant throats as, hanging head downward over them, 

 they clung with their claws to the entrance of their home. 

 And when after a time the chicks were old enough to scramble 

 about on the trunk of the tree outside their home, a wheezy 

 call from one of them was enough to bring one or both of the 

 parents, with throat distended with the best the wood afford- 

 ed, to minister to their wants. Together they had driven 

 away the over-solicitous squirrels and meddlesome sparrows 

 who came to visit them. Together they had guided their 

 asthmatic young family about the wood, teaching them by 

 example, if not by precept, where food was to be foimd, and 

 how to meet the dangers they were likely to encounter at any 

 moment. 



The accidents of nature had depleted the brood, till now 

 but two of them were left. A ball of baby feathers in the 

 home of an owl living in the wood told the story of the pass- 

 ing of one of them; the gladness which attended the home- 

 coming of a foraging mother squirrel marked the taking off 

 of another; so they had gone, till only these two remained, 

 wheezy and exacting. 



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