UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES AFIELD 93 



in a flurry of snow. How she breasted one flood 

 rain always has been a marvel to me. The tree 

 stood on sloping ground outside a French window. 

 Taking into account two feet of foundation and 

 the slope, the nest was almost level with the face 

 of a person standing inside the window. The 

 rainfall began on Monday morning quite early. 

 From that time until ten o'clock on Thursday there 

 was not an hour of daylight during which there was 

 not rain heavy enough to keep the bird on her 

 nest to shelter it and her eggs. Much of the 

 time there was a deluge that forced her to stick 

 her beak straight up and gasp for breath. Dur- 

 ing daylight some member of the household was 

 almost constantly on watch. Never once did the 

 bird leave her nest or the male bird bring her food 

 or relieve her long siege of brooding. It rained 

 and it rained, until I thought that the mud plaster- 

 ing of the nest foundations would dissolve so that 

 it would wash away from under her, but she had 

 built an unusually large nest with much grass and 

 straw covering the outside of the body so that it 

 endured. I thought that she would become so 

 wet that the water would run down her body 

 through her feathers and chill the eggs until they 

 would be spoiled. In the heaviest of the downpour 

 I truly thought that the bird would drown on her 

 nest or die from hunger. We seriously discussed 

 trying to wire an old umbrella over her or fixing 

 a box above the nest but any shelter we could 



