Nesting of the Dickcissel. 271 



plant their own flag there and to dispossess other species who 

 may have staked out a prior and much better claim. When 

 therefore a pair of Rock Pipits began to carry nesting mat- 

 erial into a division of this aviary last June it was strictly 

 according to precedent that a pair of Red-headed Buntings 

 should commence a nest close to them and that, before they 

 had quite completed the latter, a pair of Corn Buntinfgs 

 should furiously attack and try to drive off the first comers. 

 1 was appointed arbitrator in the dispute and I settled it 

 it in this way. The Red-heads' nest was almost finished; 

 the Corn Buntings' nest was only just commenced and the 

 Pipits' nest I could find no trace of; so I gave it as my. 

 award that the Red -heads should have priority and, to make 

 quite sure that my award was duly observed, I shut them in 

 and shut the others out. Of course there was the usual 

 grumbling, and as a matter of fact my decision proved to 

 be both unjust and misconceived for, about a week later I 

 found the Pipits' nest in a most unlikely situation — in a nest- 

 box, quite 10 feet from the ground — and containing a clutch 

 of eggs. It only remained for me to apologise and to say 

 'that I. was exceedingly sorry for my carelessness, which, 

 I may add, was the literal truth! I turned in the Dickcissels 

 with the Red -heads on the off-chance that I might pull off 

 a double event, and it was quite in accordance with the con- 

 trariness of birds that although the Red -heads now had an 

 undisturbed territory and an unmolested nest, they' dawdled 

 about for the rest of the summer and did nothing further, 

 whereas the Dickcissels at once set to work and commenced 

 bouse -keeping. 



It was on the 25th of June that I first missed the 

 (hen Dickcissel and assumed that incubation had commenced, 

 iblit I had not succeeded in exactly locating the nest. It 

 was evidently somewhere in the thick growth under an Aus- 

 trian Pine, but they were so vastly mysterious about their 

 Oiperations that I did not bother much about it: I always 

 notice that when people are very mysterious and conse- 

 .quential about anything it generally proves, when they sub- 

 ^sequently condescend as a great favour to take one into 

 their confidence, to be something absolutely and ridiculously 

 ufnimportant. So, although I had a look for the nest, I did 



