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him well, you may even feel hurt that Little 

 Friend Ch'geegee, who shared your camp 

 Ch'geegee-Iokh'Sis and fed from your dish last winter, should 

 this spring seem just as frank, yet never 

 invite you to his camp, or should even lead 

 you away from it. But the soft little nest 

 in the old knot-hole is the one secret of 

 Chickadee's life; and the little deceptions 

 by which he tries to keep it are at times so 

 childlike, so transparent, that they are even 

 more interesting than his frankness. 



One afternoon in May I was hunting, with- 

 out a gun, about an old deserted farm among 

 the hills — one of those sunny places that 

 the birds love, because some sense of the 

 human beings who once lived there still 

 clings to the half-wild fields and gives pro- 

 tection. The day was bright and warm. 

 The birds were everywhere, flashing out of 

 the pine thickets into the birches in all the 

 joyfulness of nest-building, and filling the 

 . air with life and. melody. It is poor hunting 

 to move about at such a time. Either the 

 hunter or his game must be still. Here 

 the birds were moving constantly ; one might 



