yal tattoo that may well express many fine
feelings.

When the musical spring holiday is over and the birds have chosen a
tree for the nest, they hew out a pocket in a trunk or branch, anywhere
from eight to eighty feet from the ground. When the young hatch, there
comes a happy day for the looker-on who, by kind intent and unobtrusive
way, has earned the right to watch the lovely birds flying back and
forth, caring for their brood.

[Sidenote: Nest.]

And then, at last, come the days when the gray-headed youngsters, from
hanging out of the window, boldly open their wings and launch into the
air. Anxious times these are for old birds,--times when the watcher's
admiration may be roused by heroic deeds of parental love; for many a
parent bird fairly flaunts in the face of the enemy, as if trying to
say, "Kill me; spare my young!"

One family of Redheads once gave me a delightful three weeks. When the
old birds were first discovered, one was on a stub in a meadow. When
joined by its mate, as the farmer was coming with oxen and hayrack to
take up the rows of haycocks that led down the field, the pair flew
slowly ahead along a line of locusts, pecking quietly at the bark of
each tree before flying on. At the foot of the meadow they flew over to
a small grove in the adjoining pasture.

As it was July, it was easy to draw conclusions. And when I went to the
grove to investigate, the pair were so much alarmed that they at once
corroborated my conclusions. Did I mean harm? Why had I come? One of
them leaned far down across a dead limb and inspected me, rattling and
bowing nervously; the other stationed itself on the back of a branch
over which it peered at me with one eye. Both of them cried
krit-tar-rah every time I ventured to take a step. As they positively
would not commit themselves as to which one of the many Woodpecker
holes in sight belonged to them I had to make a tour of the grove.

[Illustration: A SCHOOL EXHIBIT.]

[Illustration: WAYNE TOWNSHIP CENTRALIZED SCHOOL LOCATED AT LEES CREEK,
CLINTON COUNTY, OHIO.]

On its edge was a promising old stub with a number of big, round holes
and, picking up a stick, I rapped on the trunk. Both birds were over my
head in an instant, rattling and scolding till you would have thought I
had come to chop down the tree and carry off the young before their
eyes. I felt injured, but having found the nest could afford to watch
from a distance.

It was not long before the old bi