— rour wmas. ouiuc aic otuau — iuk uowuy 

 woodpecker's little domicile; and others, more capacious, 

 belonged to the hairy; this great one which seems like a 

 bird's boarding house, was the home of the golden-wing; 

 and here on the outside the log cock has left his blaze. 

 "Sometimes one finds in these dead trees the remains of a 

 nest more interesting than any woodpecker's— that of the 

 red-bellied nuthatch, perhaps the most abundant of our 

 woods' birds. The woods resound with their harsh 

 metaUic, drawling iee-eet, tee-eet, and they may be seen 

 everywhere industriously running up and down the tree 

 trunks, too busy to turn about, or else because nature 

 shaped both ends alike, as indiiferent to "end-for-ending" 

 as a steam ferryboat. Their nest is a deep hole excavated 

 by themselves, externally so much like a chickadee's or 

 a downy woodpecker's that it might be passed unnoticed 

 but for one peculiarity, the two nests which 1 have seen 

 were both distinguishable and even noticeable on account 

 of a considerable quantity of pitch which was smeared 

 about the opening both above and below*. As one was 

 in a white birch and the other in a poplar— trees which 

 yield no gum nor resinous exudations— the busy little 

 home makers must have made many a journey back and 

 forth before they collected all the pitch which ornamented 

 their lintel and doorposts, for it ran down like the oint- 

 ment upon Aaron's beard. 



This dry poplar is a very light wood, lighter than dry 

 cedar even, so that it is astonishing to see how large a 

 piece a man can shoulder and carry into camp. Having 

 arrived there, each must construct his fire after his own 

 fancy; it is a craft in which no man ever learns anything 

 or will consent to be taught of his neighbor. Ancient as 

 the art is, going back to the shadowy, prehistoric ages 

 when man was separated from the brutes and a brand 

 given him as the sign of his superiority, it is as primitive 

 as at first; a naked savage knows more about making afire 

 than the inhabitant of St. James', and the one who could 

 not live on raw meat by a grim turn of fate is the one 

 who would not know how to cook it. But every one has 

 his own theories of fire architecture; and you may name 

 a man from the fire he builds, just as from the style of 

 the nest you can determine the kind of bird that made 

 it. One lays all his sticks across both andirons, and an- 

 other will place a certain number with one end only rest- 

 ing on the dogs — each with convincing arguments in 

 favor of the reasonableness of his own method; and I 

 knew a man once, of kingly intellect, with a firm grasp 

 on half the sciences and the power to make all the metals 

 obey him, who to the day of his death placed his kind- 



*One o£ these nests was empty, tiie other contained five eggs. 

 They were described in the Auk at the time of their discovery, 

 and are now in the collection of Mr. William Brewster, of Cam- 

 bridge, Mass. The only other inslancp I have seen of a bird pitch- 

 ing its nest was a redstart, which built a wonderful little npst, 

 but was too vain to hide ir. so that the boys tore it down. But the 

 note properly belongs to Miss Flnjence A. Merriam. and, I be- 

 lieve, is mentioned in her delighttul littie volume "Birds With m . 

 Opera trlass." J 



