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THE NEST IN THE MAIL-BOX. 



One day I put some fine 

 crumbs in the nest, thinking 

 they would Hke to eat them. 

 I wish you could have seen 

 the mamma bird. She flew 

 round and round, acting as 

 if crazy. Finally she began 

 taking out the tiny crumbs 

 one by one, until the last 

 one was thrown away. I 

 had seen pictures of chil- 

 dren feeding crumbs to 

 birds, and I thought it the 

 right thing to do. But 

 surely it was not the food 

 these birds needed. For 

 several weeks we watched 

 them, and saw them grow. 

 We wanted to see the 

 mamma teach them to fly. 

 But they all left suddenly. 



The nest was empty one day, and we could never tell our birds 



from the others in the vard. I brousrht 



the nest into the house and kept it all 



winter. We wondered if we should 



see the little birds again the next year. 

 At the opening of spring we watched 



closely, and, sure enough, the blue- 

 birds did come again, and built a nest 



in the same box. This time they made 



a better foundation, raised the nest 



higher up, lined it with horse-hair, and 



jjut it in one corner of the box. Then 



the mamma bird laid five little eggs, 



and we and the}^ were happy. 



One day we missed an egg. The 



