38 
BY THE WAYSIDE 
Second Prize 
229 Third St., Jackson, Mich. 
Dear Wayside:— 
While looking for nests on my way 
home from school at noon I saw a bird 
a little smaller than a Robin, with a 
blue back, dark blue head, white breast 
and throat. He was searching for in¬ 
sects high up in a maple tree. When 
I got home I looked in my guide and 
found it was a White-breasted Nut- 
hatcher. 
On the trunk of the same tree was a 
little Brown Creeper. He went hop¬ 
ping around the trunk hunting in 
every crevice for insects. When he 
got to about the middle of the tree he 
flew to the trunk of the next tree. He 
did not pay attention to me. I got so 
close T could easily have caught him. 
For a long time I had heard a kind 
of dee-dee-dee but had never seen the 
bird. One noon I was surprised to see 
a little Chickadee bobbing around in 
every position in search of insects. He 
was very tame and I got very close to 
him before lie flew away. 
Yours truly, 
Corden Knowles. 
Mazomanie, Wis., Dec. 8, 1911. 
Third Prize 
Dear Wayside:— 
One day while I was sitting on the 
porch I saw a sparrow making a nest. 
There was some cord on the ground, 
the sparrow saw it and picked it up 
and flew away with it. So I thought I 
would go in the house and get some 
more cord. I could not find only one 
piece of white cord so I got some red 
and blue cord. Soon the same spar¬ 
row came and took the piece of white 
cord, but would not take any of the 
colored cord and when I ask my 
mother why she said that they did not 
want the boys to see their nest so plain. 
Well T must close from 
Your friend, 
Age 12. Rudy Zeller. 
(Continued from page 35) 
They congregate here in great num¬ 
bers, mate nest and thrive in the low- 
lying rocky islands, and feed upon the 
wastes of the fishing industry, which 
affords a livelihood for a large number 
of people of this region. The fisher¬ 
men look upon these birds as public 
benefactors, seldom, if ever molesting 
them in any manner. 
Gulls will follow in the wake of a 
fish, tug for hours, picking up any fish 
scraps that may be dropped overboard. 
The remarkable thing about this is that 
they do not seize upon the object until 
they have first made an initial flight 
for inspection, as it were. The gull 
having made this investigation and 
feeling assured that all is well, makes 
a second swoop, scoops up the prize in 
his bill and soars upwards only to be 
followed by the noisy, clamoring 
throng. The varied antics and pecul¬ 
iar flapping of wings resemble the scat¬ 
tering of so much cotton. Hide a cork 
or some other wooden object within 
the offal thrown overboard and one 
swoop is enough to convince the wary 
bird that all is not well. It appears 
that they are endowed with some in¬ 
stinct or extra sense that warns them 
of danger to their digestive apparatus. 
It may be that their olfactory powers 
have been so perfectly developed that 
this sense assists them in detecting any 
change from the natural. 
Gulls prefer dead fish and the offal 
to live fish, but are frequently seen div¬ 
ing in the shallows along the shore for 
the smaller fish which they handle with 
remarkable skill. When in quest of 
live fish, the gull flies leisurely over the 
water, head moving from side to side 
with an occasional downward glance at 
the contents of the depths below. Hav¬ 
ing spied a fish, our friend, the gull, 
poses for a moment, flutters, and is 
down head foremost into the water 
with speed that is most marvelous. 
It takes but a short time before cap- 
