if we
got any of the later ones.

A robin has built her nest in my summer-house. She abuses me so when I
try to tarry there, after incubation has begun, that I take no comfort
and presently withdraw. Until her brood has flown, I am practically a
stranger in my open-air rest-house and study.

When the fish crows come egging in the spruces and maples about the
house, and I hear the screaming of the robins, I seize my gun and rush
out to protect them, but am not always successful, as the mischief is
often done before I get within reach; I am not sure but that the robins
think--if they think at all--that I am in league with the crows to
despoil them. I was not in time to save the eggs of the wood thrush the
other morning, when I heard the alarm calls of the birds, but I had the
satisfaction of seeing the black marauder go limping over the hill,
dropping quills from his wings at nearly every stroke. I am sure he will
not come back. The fish crow is one of the most active enemies of our
small birds. Of course, he only obeys his instincts in hunting out and
devouring their eggs and young, but I fancy I obey something higher than
instinct when I protest with powder and shot.

The birds do not mind the approach of the domestic animals, such as the
cow, the horse, the sheep, the pig, and they are only a little
suspicious of the dog, but the appearance of the cat fills them with
sudden alarm. I think that birds that have never before seen a cat join
in the hue and cry. What alarms one alarms all within hearing. The
orioles are probably the most immune from the depredations of crows and
jays and owls of all our birds, and yet they will join in the cry of
"Thief, thief!" when a crow appears. (The alarm cry of birds will even
arrest the attention of four-footed beasts, and often bring the
sportsman's stalking to naught.)

I fancy that Phoebe selects our sheds and bridges and porticoes for
her nesting-sites because they are so much more numerous than the
overhanging rocks where her forbears built. For the same reason certain
of the swallows and the swifts select our barns and chimneys.

If the birds themselves are not afraid to draw near us, why should their
instinct lead them to feel that their enemies will be afraid of us? How
do they know that a jay or a crow or a red squirrel will be less timid
than they are? And why also, if they have such confidence in us, do they
raise such a hue and cry when we pass near their nests? The