t a little
hole in a tree or stump or fence post. I recall having once watched a
pair of chickadees hollowing the upper end of a truncated sassafras
tree that was half decayed. They would fly into the cavity, pick off a
chip, dash out and away a rod or two, drop the fragment, then dart back
to the hollow for another piece. In this way the busy couple worked
hour by hour without resting for an instant. Their reason no doubt for
carrying the chips some distance away from their nest was that they did
not want any telltale fragments to betray their secret to their enemies.

It would be impossible to tell how many chickadee nests I have found in
all the years of my bird study. One of them was in an old stump near a
path along which I was sauntering. My attention was attracted by the
little husband's flying from the stump and calling nervously, thus
unwittingly "giving away" his secret. Had he been quiet, my suspicions
would not have been aroused; but many birds, like a few people here and
there, find it very hard to keep a secret. And this, by the way, is
one of the strangest things about Nature--that she has not taught her
feathered children to go with apparent unconcern about their employment
when a nest is near, but impels them to chirp and flit about in such a
way as to excite the suspicion of an enemy.

Moralizing aside, however. On examining the stump, I found a deep
cavity just inside of the decaying bark. Though it was quite dusk
within, by slightly pressing the bark aside I could see the little
mother sitting on the nest, unwilling to leave it in spite of my
proximity. I almost touched her with my hand, and still she did not
move. Unwilling to disturb so brave a heroine, I stepped back and
walked quietly away a few rods to see what would happen, when she
popped out of the orifice like an arrow and, joined by her mate, set up
a loud chattering, which sounded as if they were saying that I was the
nosiest and most impudent man in the whole countryside.

No doubt they were right, for I went back, in spite of their protest,
and peeped into the nest, and found four gleaming white eggs studding
the bottom like pearls. Alas! when I visited the place two weeks
later, the little domicile had been raided, the half-decayed walls
having been broken down. A tuft of gray hair hanging to a splinter
proved the invader to have been a predatory animal of some kind,
probably a cat. The birds were nowhere to be seen--un