Birds have been found caught in the lining of a nest, so that they were held there and could not go for food. They had been there for weeks, and would have starved to death if they had not been fed. Yet they were so well taken care of by other birds that they were strong and able to fly. In one case, where the nest was in a tree trunk, the hole in the trunk had grown up, so that when big enough to fly, they could not get out, and they had been there for months. Yet when a man cut open the trunk and let them out, they were well and lively, proving that they had been fed by friends outside all that time. I could tell you many true stories of the kind care of birds for each other, and for baby birds who had lost their parents, or been stolen away from them. A gentleman in Massachusetts told me that when he was a boy he saw a small flock of chewinks who came about a house where food was put out for birds. They came every day, and he soon saw that one was bigger than the rest, and that he never tried to pick up anything for himself, but all the others fed him. One day he was cruel enough to throw a stone at the bird who was so well taken care of, and when he took up his victim, he found that the upper and lower parts of his bill were crossed, so that he could not pick up anything from the ground, where chewinks find their food. He had been born thus deformed, and if he had not been fed every day by his friends he must have starved to death. Yet so well had he been cared for that he was better grown than any of the others. XIX HIS AFFECTIONS I AM sure I need not say that father and mother birds love their little ones. So much does the mother love her nestlings that she is often willing to die for them. Orioles and chickadees will let themselves be caught in the hand of one who has taken their young, rather than desert them. Some birds live in our chimneys, generally in a flue that is not in use, and are called chimney swifts. If a chimney takes fire the mother swift tries hard to get her little ones out, but if they cannot fly, she has been seen to fly into the fire herself, and die with them. Robins have been found frozen to death on their nest. They could easily have saved themselves, but they would not leave their young ones to perish. A ground bird has been known to sit on her nest during a freezing storm, till she died, rather than go and leave her little ones to suffer. Once when a young cedar-bird was caught and carried off, the father followed it for miles, crying and showing so much distress that the man who had stolen it was sorry for him, and let the little one go. Every one who has watched them knows that birds love their mates. A man once shot a sea bird, when her mate came about him, crying and showing his grief as well as if he could speak. I could easily fill a book with stories to prove that birds are loving to their mates and young, and all of them true.