52 BIRD STUDIES WITH A CAMERA 
sired position, when a click announced the realiza- 
tion of a bird photographer’s wildest dream. 
Fortunate is the bird photographer who discov- 
ers an advantageously situated Chickadee’s nest. 
Dr. Robert’s charming description in Bird-Lore of 
his experience with a family of Chickadees stimu- 
lated my desire to make a camera study of this spe- 
cies. The first nest found, however, was claimed by 
a band of roving boys, who in pure wantonness 
pushed down the stub from which a few days later 
the young would have issued. 
A second time I was more fortunate. It was on 
the morning of May 29, 1899, at Englewood, N. J., 
that in going through a young second growth I 
chanced to see a Chickadee, who in arranging her 
much-worn plumage gave unmistakable evidence of 
haying recently left her nest. At once I looked 
about for a partly decayed white birch, a tree espe- 
cially suited to the Chickadee’s powers and needs. 
The bark remains tough and leathery long after the 
interior is crumbling, and having penetrated the 
outer shell the Chickadee finds no difficulty in exca- 
vating a chamber within. 
A few moments’ search revealed a stub so typical 
as to match exactly the image I held in my mind’s 
eye, with an opening about four feet from the 
ground. The interior was too gloomy to enable one 
to determine its contents, but, returning in half an 
hour, I tapped the stub lightly, when, as though I 
had released the spring of a Jack-in-a-box, a Chicka- 
dee popped out of the opening and into a neighboring 
tree. I wished her good morning, assured her that 
