ore I must
go I went out to take my last look at them. Their calls were still loud
and frequent, and I had no difficulty in tracing them to a dead twig
near the top of a pine-tree, where they sat close together, as usual,
with faces to the west; lacking only in length of tail of being as big
as their parents, yet still calling for food, and still, to all
appearances, without the smallest notion that they could ever help
themselves.

Thus I left them.

III.

THE BABES IN THE WOOD.

The little home in the wood was well hidden. About its door were no
signs of life, no chips from its building, no birds lingering near, no
external indication whatever. In silence the tenants came and went;
neither calls, songs, nor indiscreet tapping gave hint of the presence
of woodpeckers in the neighborhood, and food was sought out of sight and
hearing of the carefully secluded spot. No one would have suspected what
treasures were concealed within the rough trunk of that old oak but for
an accident.

Madam herself was the culprit. In carrying out an eggshell, broken at
one end and of no further use, she dropped it near the foot of the tree.
To her this was doubtless a disaster, but to me it was a treasure-trove,
for it told her well-kept secret. The hint was taken, the home soon
found in the heart of an oak, with entrance twenty feet from the ground,
and close watching from a distance revealed the owner, a golden-winged
woodpecker.

The tree selected by the shy young pair for their nursery stood in a
pleasant bit of woods, left wild, on the shore of the Great South Bay,
"where precious qualities of silence haunt," and the delicious breath of
the sea mingled with the fragrance of pines. One must be an enthusiast
to spy out the secrets of a bird's life, and this pair of golden-wings
made more than common demand on the patience of the student, so silent,
so wary, so wisely chosen, their sanctum. Before the door hung a
friendly oak branch, heavy with leaves, that swayed and swung with every
breeze. Now it hid the entrance from the east, now from the west, and
with every change of the vagrant wind the observer must choose a new
point of view.

Then the birds! Was ever a pair so quiet? Without a sound they came, on
level path, to the nest, dropped softly to the trunk, slipped quickly
in, and, after staying about one minute inside, departed as noiselessly
as they came. Their color, too! One would think a bird of that size, of
g