him
away, not heeding his vigorous protest of "yank, yank," and examined
the bark of the sapling. What did I discover? A colony of black ants
were scuttling up and down the tree, apparently under stress of great
excitement; and good reason they had, for here and there one of their
number was tightly wedged into a chink of the bark, often doubled up
into a bow or an angle. They were not killed, at least not all of
them, for they were still wiggling their legs and antennas; but they
were evidently benumbed, or some of their backs were broken, and they
were fastened so securely in the fissures that they could not escape.
Does it not look as if the forehanded nuthatch was laying by a supply
of ants for a coming time of hunger?

One day a family of wood pewees visited the dooryard of my tent. A
multitude of gnats circling about in the air, seemed to be precisely to
the taste of the pewee parents and their hungry bairns. The bantlings
sat chirping in the saplings, or flitted from twig to twig, twinkling
their wings in the coaxing way that is characteristic of young birds,
while the papa and mamma swung out into the air, nabbed the insects on
the wing, and flew back to the trees, describing many circles,
ellipses, and festoons of rare grace and beauty. The snapping of their
mandibles could often be heard as they closed upon the fated insects.
Most of the gnats thus captured were thrust into the mouths of the
young birds, the parents dashing up to them and feeding them without
alighting. As lavish a minstrel as the pewee _pater familias_ is under
most circumstances, that morning he was too busy to tune his wind harp.

Speaking of the voracious appetites of birds, as exhibited by the young
pewees, which never seemed to get enough, I am reminded of something I
witnessed one day in a deep, wooded hollow. A red-eyed vireo suddenly
appeared in the branches above me, holding an immense green worm in his
beak. Then followed a tussle for the "upper hand" that was worth
seeing. The bird, holding its squirming victim by one end, proceeded
to beat it against the limb, though it was almost too big and
recalcitrant for him to handle. Presently the vireo, after a good deal
of effort, succeeded in passing his quarry through his bill from end to
end, thus reducing it to somewhat smaller dimensions. Still, it was a
large morsel for so small a diner.

However, there were some intimations that the bird intended to bolt the
worm who