There is much to be learned about the habits of birds, even in a casual observation of them as we meet them from time to time.

It is well known that the English sparrow is not friendly toward other birds, often driving them from their nests and even going so far as to destroy both these and their young.

Upon one occasion a sparrow took possession of the partially completed nest of a pair of martins, in process of construction, beneath the eaves of a farmhouse. When the martins returned with their load of mud for its walls, the sparrow, intrenched within, drove them away with scolding cries and fluttering wings, resisting all their attempts at dislodging him. Time after time the attack was renewed, all to no avail. There he was and there he proposed to remain.

But the plucky martins were not so easily vanquished. They retired for a season, only to renew the attack with increased vigor, waging a battle long and fierce. Finally, however, they seemed to understand that their enemy had the better of them, and bent their energies toward vengeance. Carrying mud in their beaks, they built a wall about the sparrow as he sat in possession of their home, surrounding him so completely that he was made a prisoner in the very place where he had taken forcible possession. And there they left him to his fate.

A pair of robins selected a nesting place in the fork of a maple, standing quite near a house, the chamber windows of which looked down directly into it. No sooner had they begun to carry sticks for the foundation, than a pair of crow black birds, with malicious intent, pounced upon it and scattered the sticks in every direction, taking advantage of the absence of the owners of the nest to carry out their mischief. Time after time did the robins repair the damage and begin afresh their work of construction. No sooner were they out of sight than the black birds tore the material out of the tree, seemingly working in great haste to complete their depredation before the robins’ return.

Stormy encounters, amounting to pitched battles sometimes, ensued when the marauders were caught by the irate home makers in the very act of tearing to fragments the work they were toiling so painfully to complete. Not one day only, but several elapsed, and still the battle continued, the interested spectators though sympathetic were powerless to help the rightful owners of the home. The black birds seemingly did not want the nest for themselves. They merely objected to the robins building there. At last, to the great relief of the red-breasts, their enemies gave up the fight and allowed them to build the nest. This they did, laying their eggs and rearing their young without further annoyance.

Many a fat angle worm does the robin get in the spring of the year, pulling them out of the ground where the bright eyes spy them close to the surface, or partly protruding therefrom. A full-grown robin has been seen to thus capture and swallow a round dozen of earth worms inside of ten minutes.

One day a fledgling was hopping across the lawn, the mother bird alert and watchful, not far away. She had been feeding it, but evidently its hunger had not yet been appeased, for it hopped to her side and began to make the coaxing noise heard when in the nest as the parent approaches with food. The mother bird paused a moment, looked about her, then hopping to one side a short distance, she planted her feet squarely upon the ground, caught one end of a worm in her beak and commenced to pull. The worm, which was a large one, was not easily dislodged and tug as hard as she could, she could not complete her capture. Evidently the worm was too long. She fairly tipped over backward in her effort, yet without avail. All at once, and as quick as a flash, so as to give it no chance to get away, she let go her hold and seizing the worm farther down, drew it triumphantly forth and gave it to her expectant offspring.

E. E. Rockwood.