OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE WISCONSIN, ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN AUDUBON SOCIETIES 
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One Year 25 Cents 
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Published by the Wisconsin Audubon Society at Madison, Wisconsin 
Entered as second class matter August 23, 1909, at Madison, Wis., under the act of Congress of March 3, 1879 
VOIv. XII. 
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DECEMBER, 1910 
NO. 6 
WAR AND PEACE 
H 
L. C. Pardee, M. D., Chicago. 
In one of his most attractive stories 
of birds, Mr. John Burroughs says of 
y 
them, “the homing instinct in birds and 
animals is one of their most remarkable 
traits: their strong attachments and their 
skill in finding their way back when re¬ 
moved to a distance. If seems at times 
as of they possessed some extra sense—• 
the home sense—which operates unerr¬ 
ingly.” 
For five years past a pair of plioebe 
birds have had their home and reared 
their young in nests which they have 
' 
built at the top of one or the other of the 
pillars on either the front or back porch 
at the country home of a neighbor of 
mine. Every Spring they came arriving 
at nearly the same day of the month each 
time, and after a very short inspection 
of the premises to note, no doubt, if 
things were as they had left them, and to 
decide whether they preferred a west or 
an east outlook for their summer home, 
and a few short flights afield to locate 
building material, they would settle 
down to housekeeping cares and duties. 
Every year they were watched with in¬ 
terest by everyone about the place, and 
everything was done to make them feel 
at ease. The son of the house, a little 
fellow much interested in bird lore, even 
went to the trouble of digging a fine lot 
of angleworms which he placed on the 
porch rail nearby where they could see 
them, but of course as the plioebes live 
on winged prey, they did not notice the 
well meant effort to help them. As the 
summer clays grew warmer and the time 
came to screen in the porches against the 
plague of flies that arrives with the “dog 
days, 7 orders were given to be sure that 
all of the fledglings had left the nest be¬ 
fore anything was done that might 
frighten them or their parents. 
For two years all went well and the 
phoebes were looked upon as part of the 
household, but the third spring there 
came trouble in the shape of that most 
impossible” member of the bird family, 
the English sparrow. The phoebes had 
come as usual and had begun the founda¬ 
tions of a new nest on the site of their 
last year s one on the back porch, that 
had been taken down after they had left 
the previous Autumn. Things were pro¬ 
gressing in good shape, when suddenly 
there appeared a pair of newly mated 
sparrows who decided that that was the 
very place which they wanted for their 
own untidy bunch of hay which they call 
a nest. 
Naturally the phoebes objected and 
