OTHER NEIGHBORS IN THE TREES. 229 



10. The nests are at the extremities of the burrows. 

 When the mother-bird is sitting, you may thrust your arm 

 in and seize her, and she will scarcely struggle or show a 

 sign of life. The young do not leave their nests until able 

 to get their own living. Sometimes they are pushed off by 

 their parents to make room for a new brood. As they pass 

 out into the great world upon inexperienced wings, many 

 of them fall a prey to the crows and hawks which are con- 

 stantly on the lookout for them. Those who escape collect 

 in small companies and roost at night among the river- 

 reeds, until the time comes for their migration, when they 

 join the elder companies and are off over land and sea. 



11. But not the young alone are exjiosed to enemies. 

 It would seem as though the situation of the nest pre- 

 cluded invasion, yet if they are near the haunts of the 

 house-sparrow they are sure to be dispossessed of their homes 

 by that buccaneer. Snakes, too, can sometimes reach their 

 holes ; weasels, like that one Mr. Hewitson tells us of, are 

 often sharp enough to make their entree from above ; 

 school-boj's regard the pink-white eggs a fine prize ; and, 

 last and worst of all, the bank-swallows are many times 

 utterly worried out of their galleries by fleas and young 

 horse-flies, which swarm and increase in their nests until 

 the bird finds endurance no longer a virtue, and digs a new 



burrow - M-nest Ingersoll. 



JAYS AND THEIR MISSION. 



1. " The mission of birds " has been a favorite study of 

 mine nearly seventy years, and loses none of its interest 

 with the advancement of age. Before I knew anything of 

 ornithology as a science, or had access to the first edition 

 of Wilson in 1813-'14, I had become familiar with the 

 common names and habits of very many of the birds of 



