fall teeter along the bank of the
Bronx River, only a pair or two of spotted sandpipers remain throughout
the nesting period, content to lay their eggs in some retired spot in the
corner of a field, where there is the least danger to them and to the
fluffy balls of long-legged down which later appear and scurry about. The
great horned owl and the red-tailed hawk formerly nested in the park, but
the frequent noise of blasting and the building operations have driven
them to more isolated places, and of their relatives there remain only the
little screech owls and the sparrow hawks. The latter feed chiefly upon
English sparrows and hence are worthy of the most careful protection.

These birds should be encouraged to build near our homes, and if not
killed or driven away sometimes choose the eaves of our houses as their
domiciles and thus, by invading the very haunts of the sparrows, they
would speedily lessen their numbers. A brood of five young hawks was
recently taken from a nest under the eaves of a school-house in this city.
I immediately took this as a text addressed to the pupils, and the
principal was surprised to learn that these birds were so valuable. In the
Park the sparrow hawks nest in a hollow tree, as do the screech owls.

Other most valuable birds which nest in the Park are the black-billed and
yellow-billed cuckoos, whose depredations among the hairy and spiny
caterpillars should arouse our gratitude. For these insects are refused by
almost all other birds, and were it not for these slim, graceful creatures
they would increase to prodigious numbers. Their two or three light blue
eggs are always laid on the frailest of frail platforms made of a few
sticks. The belted kingfisher bores into the bank of the river and rears
his family of six or eight in the dark, ill-odoured chamber at the end.
Young cuckoos and kingfishers are the quaintest of young birds. Their
plumage does not come out a little at a time, as in other nestlings, but
the sheaths which surround the growing feathers remain until they are an
inch or more in length; then one day, in the space of only an hour or so,
the overlapping armour of bluish tiles bursts and the plumage assumes a
normal appearance.

The little black-and-white downy and the flicker are the two woodpeckers
which make the Park their home. Both nest in hollows bored out by their
strong beaks, but although full of splinters and sawdust, such a
habitation is far superior to the