“Taming wild birds is a new field in nature study, and one never can tell what success he will have until he has experimented with different species.  Some birds tame much more easily than others.  On three or four occasions I have enticed a chickadee to my hand at the first attempt, while in other cases it has taken from fifteen minutes to a whole day.

“Chipping sparrows that frequent my doorway I have tamed in two days.  A nuthatch required three hours before it would fly to my hand, although it took food from my stick the first time it was offered.  When you find a bird on her nest, it is of course much easier to tame that individual than if you had to follow it about in the open, and wait for it to come within reach of a stick.  By exercising extreme caution, and approaching inch by inch, I have climbed a tree to the nest of a yellow-throated vireo, and at the first attempt handed the bird a meal-worm with my fingers.  At one time I had two house wrens, a yellow-throated vireo, a chipping sparrow and a flock of chickadees that would come to my hand.”

[Illustration:  SIX WILD CHIPMUNKS DINE WITH MR. LORING]

It would be possible—­and also delightful—­to fill a volume with citations of evidence to illustrate the quick acceptance of man’s protection by wild birds and mammals.  Let me draw a few illustrations from my own wild neighbors.

On Lake Agassiz, in the N.Y.  Zoological Park, within 500 feet of my office in the Administration Building, a pair of wild wood-ducks made their nest last spring, and have just finished rearing nine fine, healthy young birds.  Whenever you see a wood-duck rise and fly in our Park, you may know that it is a wild bird.  During the summer of 1912 a small flock of wild wood-ducks came every night to our Wild-Fowl Pond, and spent the night there.

A year ago, a covey of eleven quail appeared in the Park, and have persistently remained ever since.  Last fall and winter they came at least twenty times to a spot within forty feet of the rear window of my office, in order to feed upon the wheat screenings that we placed there for them.

When we first occupied the Zoological Park grounds, in 1899, there was not one wild rabbit in the whole 264 acres.  Presently the species appeared, and rabbits began to hop about confidently, all over the place.  In 1906, we estimated that there were about eighty individuals.  Then the marauding cats began to come in, and they killed off the rabbits until not one was to be seen.  Thereupon, we addressed ourselves to those cats, in more serious earnest than ever before.  Now the cats have disappeared; and one day last spring, as I left my office at six o’clock, everyone else having previously gone, I almost stepped upon two half-grown bunnies that had been visiting on the front door-mat.

When we were macadamizing the yards around the Elephant House, with a throng of workmen all about every day, a robin made its nest on the heavy channel-iron frame of one of the large elephant gates that swung to and fro nearly every day.