It was the merest cavity, pushed into the dead leaves, with three shreds of bark for first timbers. In less than a week the structure was finished and furnished--with a tiny white egg thickly sprinkled with brown. I watched the spot daily, and finally saw the four young warblers safely out into their new woods-world. But from the day the first egg was laid until the nestlings left I constantly expected to find everything crushed under the foot of some passer-by. When free from household cares the chickadee is the most sociable of the birds of the woods. But he takes family matters seriously, and withdraws so quietly to the unfrequented parts of the woods during nesting-time as to seem to have migrated. Yet of the four chickadees' nests found about the house, one was in a dead yellow birch in a bit of deep swamp, two others were in yellow birches along wood-roads, and the fourth was in a rotten fence-post by the main road, a long way from any trees. [Illustration: "But the pair kept on together, chatting brightly."] A workman while mending the fence discovered this last nest. The post crumbled in his hands as he tried to pull it down, revealing the nest of moss and rabbit hair, with its five brown-and-white eggs. He left the old post, propped it up with a sound one, and, mending the broken walls of the cavity the best he could, hurried along with his task, that the birds might return. They came back, found the wreckage of dust and chips covering the eggs, tried the flimsy walls--and went away. It was a desecrated home, neither safe nor beautiful now; so they forsook it. There is no eagle's nest in this collection of thirty-six. But if Mr. Burroughs is correct, there is the next thing to it--a humming-bird's nest; three of them, indeed, one of which is within a stone's throw of my door! This one is in the oaks behind my garden, but the other two are even nearer to houses. One of these is upon the limb of a pear-tree. The tip of this limb rubs against a woodshed connected with a dwelling. The third nest is in a large apple orchard, in the tree nearest the house, and saddled upon that branch of the tree which reaches farthest toward the dwelling. So close is this nest that I can look out of the garret window directly into it. [Illustration: "In a dead yellow birch."] I believe that Ruby-throat is so far domesticated that he rejoices over every new flowergarden. There was nearly half an acre of gladioli in the neighborhood one summer, where all the humming-birds gathered from far and near. Here, for the only time in my life, I saw a _flock_ of humming-birds. I counted eight one day; and the gardener told me that he had often seen a dozen of them among the spikes. They squeaked like bats, and played--about as bullets might play. In fact, I think I dodged when they whizzed past me, as a soldier does the first time he is under fire. [Illustration: "So close I can look directly into it."]