The Bay of the Band 
bird shows a marked preference, makes deliberate 
choice, and in his choice is protection, and poetry, 
too. Doubtless he follows the guidance of a sure and 
watchful instinct (whatever instinct be), but who shall 
deny to him a share of the higher, finer things of the 
imagination ? a share of real zesthetic taste? 
His life inside the birch is of a piece with the 
artistic exterior. It is all gentle and sweet and idyllic. 
There is no happier spot in the summer woods than 
that about the birch of the chickadees; and none 
whose happiness you will be so little liable to disturb. 
Before the woods were in leaf one spring I found 
a pair of chickadees building in a birch along the edge 
of the swamp. They had just begun, having dug out 
only an inch of cavity. It was very interesting to dis- 
cover them doing the work themselves, for usually 
they refit some abandoned chamber or adapt a ready- 
made hole. 
The birch was a long, limbless cylinder of bark, 
broken off about fourteen feet up, and utterly rotten, 
the mere skin of a tree stuffed with dust. I could 
push my finger into it at any point. It was so weak 
that every time the birds lighted upon the top the 
whole stub wobbled and reeled. Surely they were 
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