104 WAKE-ROBIN 
birds, especially the creepers and nuthatches, have 
many of the habits of the Picide, but lack their 
powers of bill, and so are unable to excavate a nest 
for themselves. Their habitation, therefore, is al- 
‘ways second-hand. But each species carries in some 
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soft material of various kinds, or, in other words, 
., furnishes the tenement to its liking. The chicka- 
dee arranges in the bottom of the cavity a little 
mat of a light felt-like substance, which looks as if 
it came from the hatter’s, but which is probably 
the work of numerous worms or caterpillars. On 
this soft lining the female deposits six speckled eggs. 
I recently discovered one of these nests in a most 
interesting situation, The tree containing it, a 
variety of the wild cherry, stood upon the brink of 
‘the bald summit of a high mountain. Gray, time- 
worn rocks lay piled loosely about, or overtoppled 
the just visible byways of the red fox. The trees 
had a half-scared look, and that indescribable wild- 
ness which lurks about the tops of all remote moun- 
tains possessed the place. Standing there, I looked 
down upon the back of the red-tailed hawk as he 
flew out over the earth beneath me. Following 
him, my eye also took in farms and settlements and 
villages and other mountain ranges that grew blue 
in the distance. 
The parent birds attracted my attention by ap- 
pearing with food in their beaks, and by seeming 
much put out. Yet so wary were they of revealing 
the locality of their brood, or even of the precise 
tree that held them, that I lurked around over an 
