BY THE WAYSIDE 
23 
1 
h 
white and brown. Its back and wings 
are mostly blue. There is a little black 
on the ends of his wings, and a little 
white mixed with it. Its tail is grayish 
with white dots in it. Its head is also 
blue. 
I climbed one of our trees near the 
school room window not long ago, and 
put strings up for the birds to build 
nests with. Some of the high school 
teachers saw me and thought that I had 
skipped school, and my teacher was 
after me. 
There is a robin our back yard. He 
has a nest built there. There are two 
eggs and two robins in the nest. They 
have been there a long time and I had 
not noticed them until to-day, which is 
Saturday. I dug some angleworms for 
them last night, and fed them to them. 
The two eggs are cracked. 
About two weeks ago I had two little 
rabbits. The cat had caught them and 
I took them awav from her. In a day 
or so afterward, I gave them a lot of clover 
to eat. They ate so much that it killed 
them. 
I have also seen many different kinds 
of wild flowers this year, such as wild 
sweet pea, wild columbine, wild rose, 
wild flag, spiderwort. shooting star, vio¬ 
lets, blue-eved grass, ladv slippers, ar¬ 
butus, and the most fragrant of all is the 
arbutus. 
Yours respectfully, 
Earl Stalker. 
Mauston, Wis., May 8, 1908. 
Dear Wayside: 
Sunday I went out to the bluff, and 
just as I got to the bluff*, I saw something 
yellow flash through the trees. I went 
to where I saw it light, and there on a 
branch of a tree I saw a goldfinch. But 
he was very wild and flew away as quick 
as he saw me. 
I went on my way up the bluff and 
when I got upon top on the west side, I 
saw a whole lot of different kinds of little 
warblers. I saw three or four flickers 
and around a little point I heard a lot of 
bluejays chattering and flying and shriek¬ 
ing what sounded like “thief! thief!” 
They were flying around a hollow tree, 
and I guessed there must be an owl in¬ 
side, but I didn’t investigate. 
Down near the spring I saw an indigo 
bunting. I followed it through the un¬ 
derbrush to see if it had a nest. But he 
led me a fine chase. He flew to the 
spring and drank and then flew up onto 
the bluff* where I couldn’t follow it. 
Yours truly, 
Charlie Casey. 
Mauston, Wis., June 8, 1908. 
Dear Wayside: 
One Sunday as another girl and I were 
going out to my grandpa’s to spend the 
day, we saw an owl on a telegraph pole; 
he looked as if he was asleep, but he 
wasn’t, because after a while he flew 
away toward the woods near my grand¬ 
pa’s. After dinner we went out into the 
woods and there we found the female 
and two little owls and they were so cute! 
The owl we had seen was the male. 
Then what should an old crow do but 
come right down (almost in front of our 
eyes) and take one of the little owls. 
The old owls did not like it very well 
but I don’t suppose they could see be¬ 
cause it was in the daytime. 
So we walked around and picked some 
flowers and then went back to the house 
and there we saw two orioles building a 
