60 BIRD STORIES FROM BURROUGHS 



near where I write. Earlier in the season the 

 parent birds made long and determined attempts 

 to establish themselves in a cavity that had been 

 occupied by a pair of bluebirds. The original 

 proprietor of the place was the downy wood- 

 pecker. He. had excavated it the autumn before, 

 and ha^. passed the winter there, often to my 

 certain knowledge lying abed till nine o'clock in 

 the morning. In the spring he went elsewhere, 

 probably with a female, to begin the season in 

 new quarters. The bluebirds early took posses- 

 sion, and in June their first brood had flown. 

 The wrens had been hanging around, evidently 

 with an eye on the place (such little comedies 

 may be witnessed anywhere), and now very nat- 

 urally thought it was their turn. A day or two 

 after the young bluebirds had flown, I noticed 

 some fine, dry grass clinging to the entrance to 

 the cavity ; a circumstance which I understood 

 a few moments later, when the wren rushed by 

 me into the cover of a small Norway spruce, 

 hotly pursued by the male bluebird. It was a 

 brown streak and a blue streak pretty close to- 

 gether. The wrens had gone to housecleaning, 

 and the bluebird had returned to find his bed 

 and bedding being pitched out of doors, and 

 had thereupon given the wrens to understand in 

 the most emphatic manner that he had no inten- 



