





MAY 26 1887 































/ But the sweetest of all this year is this : 

 When I built an addition to my horse bam 

 I was obliged to cvxt down an old cherry 

 tree, which I did, leaving a stump some six 

 feet high, into which I placed a ring to 

 hitch my horses to. One morning I no- 

 ticed a pair of Chigkaclees at work on the 

 stump, and I gave them my closest atten- 

 tion. My man hitched the horses to this 

 stump every morning as he cleaned them 

 oiF, and although the horses' heads were 

 within a foot of their hole they kept at 

 work and finally laid their eggs and brought 

 forth the young in good order. By the 

 aid of a mirror I threw the light into the 

 hole, so that I could see all that was going 

 on. They began work April 27th, carried 

 in nesting material May 10th, began set- 

 ting May 17th, hatched May 26th, and the 

 young flew June 12th. What I notice in 

 this as singular is the fact that we usually 

 find these birds breeding in the thickest of 

 swamps and almost always in white birch 

 stumps ; and that they should come into 

 the open and so close to the house, and 

 more : they worked most systematically, 

 each working and taking out chips. One 

 would carry away the chip that he (or she) 

 had pecked out and fly to a pear tree near by 

 and " wipe" it off her bill, when the other 

 would at once go in and go to work. They 

 did it so regularly that, as one went out of j 

 the hole the other met it about half way , y, i 



between the pear and cherry tree. — ^ ..^^n L iiX^ 

 W. Voe, Portland, O.&O. VU. Dec.l882.pwWyfc|^ 



