a shrike, or a cat. One would not think
the food would digest when taken in such haste and trepidation.

While the jays are feeding, swallowing morsel after morsel very
rapidly, the chickadees flit about in an anxious, peevish manner,
lest there be none left for themselves.

I suspect the jays carry the food off and hide it, as they
certainly do corn when I put it out for the hens. The jay has a
capacious throat; he will lodge half a dozen or more kernels of
corn in it, stretching his neck up as he takes them, to give them
room, and then fly away to an old bird's-nest or a caterpillar's
nest and deposit them in it. But in this respect the little
kettle cannot call the big pot black. The chickadee also will
carry away what it cannot eat. One day I dug a dozen or more
white grubs--the larvae of some beetle--out of a decayed maple on
my woodpile and placed them upon my window-sill. The chickadees
soon discovered them, and fell to carrying them off as fast as
ever they could, distributing them among the branches of the
Norway spruces. Among the grubs was one large white one half the
size of one's little finger. One of the chickadees seized this;
it was all he could carry, but he made off with it. The mate to
this grub I found rolled up in a smooth cell in a mass of decayed
wood at the heart of the old maple referred to; it was full of
frost. I carried it in by the fire, and the next day it was alive
and apparently wanted to know what had brought spring so
suddenly.

How rapidly birds live! Their demand for food is almost
incessant. This colony of mine appear to feed every eight or ten
minutes. Their little mills grind their grist very rapidly. Once
in my walk upon the sea beach I encountered two small beach birds
running up and down in the edge of the surf, keeping just in the
thin, lace-like edging of the waves, and feeding upon the white,
cricket-like hoppers that quickly buried themselves in the sand
as the waters retreated. I kept company with the birds till they
ceased to be afraid of me. They would feed eagerly for a few
minutes and then stop, stand on one leg and put their heads under
their wings for two or three minutes, and then resume their
feeding, so rapidly did they digest their food. But all birds
digest very rapidly.

My two woodpeckers seldom leave the tree upon which the food is
placed. One is a male, as is shown by his red plume, and the
other a female. There is not a bit of kindness or amity betwe