tree, and that I destroyed several in breaking 

 my way up the face of the structure. 



Do the blackbirds nest here for the protec- 

 tion afforded by the presence of the hawks ? Do 

 they come for the crumbs which fall from these 

 great people's table ? Or is it the excellent op- 

 portunity for social life offered by this conve- 

 nient apartment-house that attracts? 



The purple grackles are a garrulous, gossipy 

 set, as every one knows. They are able-bodied, 

 not particularly fond of fish, and inclined to 

 seek the neighborhood of man, rather than to 

 come out here away from him. They make very 

 good American rooks. So I am led to think it 

 is their love of "neighboring" that brings them 

 about the hawk's nest. If this surmise is correct, 

 then the presence of two families of English 

 sparrows among them might account for there 

 being only eight nests now, where a decade ago 

 there were twenty. 



I was amused — no longer amazed— at finding 

 the sparrows here. The seed of these birds shall 

 possess the earth. Is there even how a spot into 

 which the bumptious, mannerless, ubiquitous 

 little pleb has not pushed himself? If you look 



[69] 



