260 
NATURE’S CRAFTSMEN 
“ There was a tremendous hue and cry in the 
garden one day last week,” supplied Alice, “ and 
on going to learn the reason I saw a pair of king¬ 
birds pursuing a red-headed woodpecker across 
the yard at a great rate. I wondered what he had 
been up to, and later as I passed by the brown 
thrasher’s nest in the rose hedge I saw that her 
brown-speckled egg was gone. I remembered 
then that she had been chief among the birds in 
the tumult, and I’m pretty well satisfied the red¬ 
head was the thief.” 
“ Circumstantial evidence has convicted many 
an innocent bystander,” warned Uncle John. 
“ Maybe Mrs. Brown Thrasher jumped to a con¬ 
clusion, just as you have done. The robber might 
have been a cat.” 
“ Only the slyest and nimblest of cats could 
reach the nest,” Alice returned, “ and you know 
the redhead is not above pilfering on occasion. I 
was sorry, for I felt sure the brown thrashers 
would abandon their nest, and they had spent so 
much time and labor on it, building a deep, cosy 
structure and decorating it handsomely with frills 
and streamers of torn paper. But evidently they 
had faith in the valor of the kingbird watchmen; 
there are three eggs in the nest now, and Mrs. 
Brown Thrasher has been sitting for a week. 
Her husband is on constant guard, and once when 
the thieving redhead flew across the yard he let 
