OLD FRIENDS IN NEW PLACES 
beak. After eyeing it a moment it opened its beak 
and I dropped the worm into its mouth. Others 
soon followed, and still others. The bird began to 
wake up and come to itself. In a little while it was 
taking the food eagerly and without any signs of 
fear. I could stroke it with one hand while I fed it 
with the other. It would sit on my knee or arm and 
take the food that was offered it. I was kept pretty 
busy supplying its wants till in the afternoon it be- 
gan to fly and to run about the room and utter its 
call-note. Before night it had become so active and 
so clamorous for its freedom that we opened the 
window. With a dash and a cry it was out of the 
house and on the wing to a near-by tree. I trust, 
with the boost I had given it, it was soon safely on 
its northward journey. 
The incident shows how extreme hunger in a wild 
creature banishes fear. One March day, when I was 
a boy, I found a raccoon wandering about the 
meadow so famished that he allowed me to pick him 
up by the tail and carry him to the house. He ate 
ravenously the food I offered him. 
The struggle for life among the birds and other 
wild creatures is so severe that the feeble and mal- 
formed, or the handicapped in any way, quickly drop 
out. Probably none of them ever die from old age. 
They are cut off in their prime. A weeding-out 
process goes on from the time they leave the nest. 
A full measure of life, the perfection of every quill 
95 
