134 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



downy woodpecker, and the king-bird. To this 

 list may often be added the warbling vireo, the 

 summer yellowbird, the screech-owl, and sometimes 

 the humming-bird. In my former yard the cat-bird, 

 who is generally associated with the wild road- 

 sides or pastures, was a common visitor, a pair build- 

 ing each year either in a red osier dogwood directly 

 under my study window or in a tall syringa near by. 

 But one does not commonly think of them in such 

 close proximity to our dwellings. 



The robin, being a large, noisy, ubiquitous bird, 

 usually betrays its nest in short order. It seems to 

 have no choice of tree for its abode; in one season, 

 for instance, there were five nests around the house, 

 one forty feet up on the extended limb of a pine 

 (this nest was robbed by the red squirrels, after a 

 tremendous battle), one in a small elm, one in a 

 Norway spruce, and two in apple-trees. As four 

 of the five managed to produce good-sized families, 

 and as they came at the same time, there was a 

 period of several days in June when it was hardly 

 safe to walk across the lawn for fear of stepping on 

 a gawky infant. They waddled, silent and clumsy, 

 over the grass, they made abortive efforts to fly and 

 got up two or three feet to low twigs, where they 

 perched for hours, dumbly, while the respective 

 parents went scuttering about feeding them with 

 enormous worms. It was a busy, active, feverish 

 time, both for the birds and for us, for we had to see 

 that no cats got on to the place. 



The bluebird, one of the most welcome of our 

 early spring visitors, builds his nest, of course, in a 

 hollow limb, especially preferring orchards where 



