136 



— cannot find a footing on those delicate 

 branches. Neither can the crow find a rest- 

 7ln Or/o/esWesf ^"^^ place from which to steal the young; 

 and the hawk's legs are not long enough to 

 reach down and grasp them, should he per- 

 chance venture near the house and hover an 

 instant over the nest. 



Besides all this, the oriole is a neighborly- 

 little body ; and that helps her. Though the 

 young are kept from harm anywhere by the 

 cunning instinct which builds a hanging 

 nest, she still prefers to build near the house, 

 where hawks and crows and owls rarely 

 come. She • knows her friends and takes 

 advantage of their protection, returning year 

 after year to the same old elm, and, like a 

 thrifty little housewife, carefully saving and 

 sorting the good threads of her storm-wrecked 

 old house to be used in building the new. 



Of late years, however, it has seemed to 

 me that the pretty nests on the secluded 

 streets of New England towns are growing 

 scarcer. The orioles are peace-loving birds, 

 and dislike the society of those noisy, pug- 

 nacious little rascals, the English sparrows, 



