The Bay of the Band 
mine, yielding some kind of food or fuel or shelter. 
And every foot, yes, every foot, is Nature’s; as en- 
tirely hers as when the thick primeval forest stood 
here. The apple trees are hers as much as mine, and 
she has an average of ten different bird families, liv- 
ing in them every spring. A pair of crows and a pair 
of red-tailed hawks are nesting in the woodlot ; there 
are at least three families of chipmunks in as many 
of my stone piles; a fine old tree toad (his fourth 
season now) sleeps on the porch under the climbing 
rose; a hornet’s nest hangs in a corner of the eaves ; 
a small colony of swifts thunder in the chimney; 
swallows twitter in the hayloft; a chipmunk and a 
half-tame gray squirrel feed in the barn; and —to 
bring an end to this bare beginning — under the roof 
of the pig-pen dwell this pair of phcebes, 
To make a bird house of a pig-pen, to divide it be- 
tween the pig and the bird — this is as far as Nature 
can go, and this is certainly enough to redeem the 
whole farm. For she has not sent an outcast ora 
scavenger to dwell in the pen, but a bird of character, 
however much he may lack in song or color. Phoebe 
does not make up well in a picture; neither does he 
perform well as a singer; there is little to him, in 
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