op the head is thrown in and
the tail thrown out, but the exact mechanics of it I cannot
penetrate. Philosophers do not yet know how a backward-falling cat
turns in the air, but turn she does. It may be that the woodpecker
never quite relaxes his hold, though to my eye he appears to do so.

Birds nearly always pass the night in such places as they select
for their nests,--ground-builders upon the ground, tree-builders
upon trees. I have seen an oriole ensconce himself for the night
amid the thick cluster of leaves on the end of a maple branch,
where soon after his mate built her nest.

My chickadees, true to this rule, pass the arctic winter nights
in little cavities in the trunks of trees like the woodpeckers.
One cold day, about four o'clock, while it was snowing and
blowing, I heard, as I was unharnessing my horse near the old
apple-tree, the sharp, chiding note of a chickadee. On looking
for the bird I failed to see him. Suspecting the true cause of
his sudden disappearance, I took a pole and touched a limb that
had an opening in its end where the wrens had the past season had
a nest. As I did so, out came the chickadee and scolded sharply.
The storm and the cold had driven him early to his chamber. The
snow buntings are said to plunge into the snow-banks and pass the
night there. We know the ruffed grouse does this.

IX

BIRD-NESTING TIME

The other day I sat for an hour watching a pair of wood thrushes
engaged in building their nest near "Slabsides." I say a pair,
though the female really did all the work. The male hung around
and was evidently an interested spectator of the proceeding. The
mother bird was very busy bringing and placing the material,
consisting mainly of dry maple leaves which the winter had made
thin and soft, and which were strewn over the ground all about.
How pretty she looked, running over the ground, now in shade, now
in sunshine, searching for the leaves that were just to her
fancy! Sometimes she would seize two or more and with a quick,
soft flight bear them to the fork of the little maple sapling.
Every five or six minutes during her absence, the male would come
and inspect her work. He would look it over, arrange a leaf or
two with his beak, and then go his way. Twice he sat down in the
nest and worked his feet and pressed it with his breast, as if
shaping it. When the female found him there on her return, he
quickly got out of her way.

But he brought no material, he d