B Y THE WA YSIDE 
as the little black cap on their heads, 
his noon there was a red squirrel in one 
' our big elm trees. There was a blue- 
y after him. The squirrel would jump 
om one limb to another and the bluejay 
'ter him. The poor little thing looked 
ightened. At last he jumped to the 
'ound and ran for our shed. Of course 
le bluejay followed him. The squirrel 
in into the shed and I chased the blue¬ 
sy away. 
There was a flicker’s nest out in a rot- 
in limb of a tree. The other day the 
mb fell down, and we put it in as good 
position as we could and went on home. 
/Len we came back at noon the janitor 
ad taken the limb down and put the 
oung ones in a hole on the other side of 
le tree. That night it rained and the 
oung ones died. Yours truly, 
Matt Grinolds. 
Little York, Ill., April 24, 1907. 
)ear Wayside: 
We saw on April 15th a strange bird, 
t was in a hill pasture near the school 
ouse. It was walking around among 
he branches of a large tree which had 
een sawed down. It was a raw, windy 
ay. It had snowed and rained early in 
he day. We saw the bird at noon. This 
ird had a long bill about two and one- 
alf inches long which was brown or 
lack on top and red on the sides, ex- 
snding out from the head about an inch 
nd a half. Its head was small, being 
luish gray under the throat and around 
he eyes. On top of its head was a dark 
olor extending from the bill down the 
ead. On its back was dark brown and 
ellowish. Its tail was brownish yellow 
nd about two inches long. When it 
23 
walked it had a queer way of twitching 
its tail which was always erect when it 
walked. Under its tail it was very yellow 
extending down between the legs. Its 
eyes were bright black, and above the eye 
was a peculiar white dot looking some¬ 
thing like a wart. Its breast was a pink¬ 
ish cinnamon color. Its legs were quite 
long and slim. It had four toes, three 
in front and one small one behind. It 
wouldn’t fly, it skulked around on the 
ground and seemed to be afraid to get 
out into the open. We think that it was 
a Virginia Rail. 
Maybel Jackson. 
Appleton, Wis., Columbus School. 
Dear Wayside: 
One day last spring, when I was visit¬ 
ing out in the country, we went out in a 
field to pick some violets. We were 
walking along, and all of a sudden I 
stepped on something that felt as though 
it was an egg. I turned around, and 
there was a nest with three eggs in it. 
We did not know what kind of eggs they 
were, but after a while discovered that 
they were a kingbird’s eggs. 
We did not take any of the eggs but 
went on farther to find some more vio¬ 
lets. We walked for a long distance 
when we heard a noise. The girl I was 
with said it was a kingbird, but I did 
not know. We followed up the noise 
and what do you suppose we found? A 
nest with three little kingbirds in it. 
We looked up in a tree and there were 
the male and female sitting on a limb 
watching us carefully. After a while one 
of the little ones began to wiggle, and 
then it flew up on the tree. 
Rubia Keuthe. 
