Other birds never see them, but Chickadee and his relations
leave never a twig unexplored. His bright eyes find the tiny eggs
hidden under the buds; his keen ears hear the larvae feeding under the
bark, and a blow of his little bill uncovers them in their
mischief-making. His services of this kind are enormous, though rarely
acknowledged.
Chickadee's nest is always neat and comfortable and interesting, just
like himself. It is a rare treat to find it. He selects an old
knot-hole, generally on the sheltered side of a dry limb, and digs out
the rotten wood, making a deep and sometimes winding tunnel downward.
In the dry wood at the bottom he makes a little round pocket and lines
it with the very softest material. When one finds such a nest, with
five or six white eggs delicately touched with pink lying at the
bottom, and a pair of chickadees gliding about, half fearful, half
trustful, it is altogether such a beautiful little spot that I know
hardly a boy who would be mean enough to disturb it.
One thing about the nests has always puzzled me. The soft lining has
generally more or less rabbit fur. Sometimes, indeed, there is nothing
else, and a softer nest one could not wish to see. But where does he
get it? He would not, I am sure, pull it out of Br'er Rabbit, as the
crow sometimes pulls wool from the sheep's backs.
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