ic dove, for instance, promptly at
mid-day the cock is found upon the nest. I should say that the dull or
neutral tints of the female were a provision of nature for her greater
safety at all times, as her life is far more precious to the species
than that of the male. The indispensable office of the male reduces
itself to little more than a moment of time, while that of his mate
extends over days and weeks, if not months.

In migrating northward, the males precede the females by eight or ten
days; returning in the fall, the females and young precede the males
by about the same time.

[Illustration: NEST OF THE CHICADEE.]

After the woodpeckers have abandoned their nests, or rather chambers,
which they do after the first season, their cousins, the nut-hatches,
chickadees, and brown creepers, fall heir to them. These birds,
especially the creepers and nut-hatches, have many of the habits of
the _picidae_, but lack their powers of bill, and so are unable to
excavate a nest for themselves. Their habitation, therefore, is always
second-hand. But each species carries in some soft material of various
kinds, or, in other words, furnishes the tenement to its liking. The
chickadee arranges in the bottom of the cavity a little mat of a
light, felt-like substance, which looks as if it came from the
hatter's, but which is probably the work of numerous worms or
caterpillars. On this soft lining the female deposits six white eggs.

I recently discovered one of these nests in a most interesting
situation. The tree containing it, a variety of the wild cherry, stood
upon the brink of the bald summit of a high mountain. Gray, time-worn
rocks lay piled loosely about, or overtoppled the just visible by-ways
of the red fox. The trees had a half-scared look, and that
indescribable wildness which lurks about the tops of all remote
mountains possessed the place. Standing there, I looked down upon the
back of the red-tailed hawk as he flew out over the earth beneath me.
Following him, my eye also took in farms, and settlements, and
villages, and other mountain ranges that grew blue in the distance.

The parent birds attracted my attention by appearing with food in
their beaks, and by seeming much put out. Yet so wary were they of
revealing the locality of their brood, or even of the precise tree
that held them, that I lurked around over an hour without gaining a
point on them. Finally a bright and curious boy who accompanied me
secreted hi