223 
A Basket of Chips. 
he uttered a funny little series of faint, 
spueaky notes that suggested the thought 
that the delicate machinery of his throat 
needed oiling. The purpose, if any, of 
these notes was not apparent. 
One would think that the nuthatch 
method of earning a living would cause 
nearsightedness. Constantly and actively 
moving up or down the trunks and limbs 
of trees, with the focus of the gaze only 
an inch or two from the eyes, these birds 
might well be excused if objects a few 
feet away were but a blurred mass. Yet 
I have seen the red-breasted nuthatch 
dart out twenty feet from the limb on 
which he sat preening his feathers and 
capture a flying insect. The eyesight 
of birds and other creatures, however, 
teaches us to be cautious in judging oth¬ 
ers by ourselves. To say nothing of the 
eagle gazing at the sun without blink¬ 
ing, or the hawk on the top of a tall 
tree descrying the grasshopper in the 
meadow grass, we must remember that 
the eyes of birds are set so far back in the 
head that they cannot come to a focus; 
they must either see double or use only 
one eye at a time. Still further are we 
removed from the certain and proved 
ground of experience if we descend to 
the fish, whose eyes stare simultaneous¬ 
ly in opposite directions. And when, as 
in the case of the flounder and others, 
each eye can be projected slightly and 
turned backward and forward indepen¬ 
dently of what, according to our experi¬ 
ence, ought to be its mate, we can but 
focus our own interdependent eyes upon 
the peculiar creature in a helpless stare. 
The brown creeper, like the nut¬ 
hatches, looks at his food at close range. 
Clinging even more closely than they to 
the tree trunk, he progresses upwai’d in 
the same jerky fashion, seeking his prey 
in the crevices of the bark, and uttering 
the while faint, high-pitched, and elusive 
notes. Usually his presence in the vicin¬ 
ity is indicated by a constantly repeated 
note that should be marked on a minia¬ 
ture staff with the point of a needle; 
though this is often replaced by a silvery, 
tremulous trill that might be a section 
cut from the reduced song of a chipping 
sparrow. Again, when flying from the 
upper part of one tree trunk to the base 
of another, he frequently transmits to 
the bird world a musical telegram, in 
which only such characters are used as 
c, e, h, i, and others that are represented 
solely by dots. 
The chips thus far collected have been 
gathered in the woods, tlie usual place 
to pick up chips, it is true, but by no 
means the only one, particularly in the 
case of birds. Out in the brown meadow 
or idle winter field, where grasses and 
weeds furnish a full supply of provender 
to those birds whose bills are adapted to 
the fare they offer, are many more, blown 
about by the wind, perhaps, but easy to 
gather for our basket. 
Here, close to protecting cover, — a 
bushy brook, or the edge of a wood, or, 
perhaps, a tangle of blackberry and 
brier, — we shall find many a motley 
throng of birds banded together by the 
gregarious spirit, rather than by commu¬ 
nity of interest, busily attacking the crop 
that the farmer can best spare. There 
may have been a heavy fall of snow, 
and only the tallest of the plants that re¬ 
tain their seeds through the season, such 
as amaranth and broom-sedge, are with¬ 
in reach ; yet bountiful meals may still 
be had, and the enforced diet but gives 
greater zest to the variety attainable 
when the white cover has been removed. 
But howsoever limited the choice of 
food, there is abundant variety in the 
notes that besprinkle the frosty air. 
There are the long-drawn, tremulous 
tseets of the white-throated sparrows ; the 
dry chips of the song sparrows, replaced 
by louder, more resonant chimps when 
danger seems nigh; the goldfinches’ 
light, staccato notes, uttered in groups 
of four or five with a tendency to rise at 
the end, and once in a while giving way 
to a sweet, sympathetic ah-ee, that sug¬ 
gests the idea of a most musical yawn j 
