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The Surprising Contents of a Birch Stub 189 failure of the light at the critical time, making it necessary to expose with a wide open lens at the loss of a depth of focus. The picture presented, therefore, does not do the subject justice. Nor can it tell of the pleasure with which each fledgling for the first time stretched its wings and legs to their full extent and preened its plumage with before unknown freedom. At the same time, they uttered a satisfied little dcc-dee-dce, in A CHICKADEE FAMILY Photographed from nature by F. M. Chapman quaint imitation of their elders. When I whistled their well-known phe-be note they were at once on the alert, and evidently expected to be fed. The birds were within two or three days of leaving the nest, and the sitting over, came the problem of returning the flock to a cavity barely two inches in diameter, the bottom of which was almost filled by one bird. I at once confess a failure to restore anything like the condition in which they were found, and when the front of their dwelling was replaced Chickadees were overflowing at the door. If their health- fulness had not belied the thought, I should have supposed it im- possible for them to exist in such close quarters. A few days later I found their home deserted, and as no other pair of Chickadees was known to nest in the vicinity, I imagine them to compose a troop of birds I sometimes meet in the neighborhood.