Page 337 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

BRINGING BACK VANISHED BIRDS AND GAME 315
sl.v \\ 11 1) H MR. l.ORING
bors to become close friends with man when protected. 1 will quote from one of Mr. Loring's letters on this subject
" 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. Anuthatchrequiredthreehoursbeforeitwouldflytomyhand, althoughittookfoodfrommystickthefirsttimeitwasoffered. When you find a bird on her nest, it is of course much easier to tame that m- dividual that 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 ap- proaching^ 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."
It would be possible—and also delightful—to fill a volume with
citations of evidence to illustrate the quick acceptance of man's pro- tection 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
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