evotion and patience!

When the bird went back to her nest, her hesitation about leaving it was
explained. For a long time she sat on a limb near by with tail bobbing,
apparently trying to make up her mind to go in. When she did fly up at
the hole she could not get in, and half fell down. After this failure
she sat down on a branch, her tail tilting as violently as a pipit's,
and when Canello moved around too much, took the excuse and flew off.
Her mate came back with her, but when he saw us, he screamed and flew
away, leaving her to her fate.

She sat looking at her hole a long time before she tried it again, and
when she did try, failed. It was not till her fourth attempt that she
succeeded. The hole was very much too small for her, and the surface of
the branch below it was so smooth and slippery that it gave her nothing
to hold to in trying to wedge herself in. She would fly against the hole
and attempt to hook her bill over the edge, and so draw herself up, but
her shoulders were too big for the space. She tried to make them smaller
by drawing down her wings lengthwise. Once, in her efforts, she spread
her tail like a fan. After her third struggle, she sat for a long time
smoothing her ruffled feathers, shaking herself, scratching her face
with her foot and trying to get her plumes in order.

While making her toilet she apparently thought of a new plan. She went
back to the hole and, raising her claw, fastened it inside the hole and
with a spasmodic effort wedged in her body and disappeared down the
black hollow. Her mate came a moment after, but she did not even appear
in the doorway when he called. Again he came, crying _keek' keek'
kick-er' r' r'_, in tender falsetto; but it was no use. Madame Falco had
had altogether too hard a time getting in, to go out again in a hurry.
He held a worm in his bill till he was tired, changed it to his claw,
letting it dangle from that for a while; and then, as she would make no
sign, finally flew off.

The next day we had another session with the sparrow hawk. She had
evidently profited by experience. She did not fly at the hole in the
violent way she had done the day before, but ambled along a limb to get
as close to it as possible, and then quietly flew up. She made two or
three unsuccessful attempts to enter, but kept at the branch,--falling
back but once. She got half way in once or twice, but could not force
her wings through. She acted as if determined not to give up,