SEEING WHAT YOU CAN SEE. 13 



laugh. His skin is as black as a crow's feath- 

 ers, and is covered sparsely with thick, stiff 

 bristles. But he feathers very rapidly, and 

 leaves the nest much sooner than most perching 

 birds. 



Near the lower end of the meadow another 

 male bobolink was swinging on the top of a 

 small willow tree. He began chirping uneasily. 

 Surely there must be a nest near at hand. 

 The female was nowhere to be seen. No 

 doubt she was sittins; on the nest. The fore- 

 noon was slipping away, and I could not wait 

 for her to fly up and show me where her cot- 

 tage was hidden. So I stalked about in the 

 tall grass, hoping, to be fortunate enough to 

 stumble upon the nest. Suddenly the female 

 flew up before me with a cry of alarm which 

 meant that she had been driven from her cradle- 

 Yes, there it was, deftly built in a grass tuft, 

 the bottom resting on the ground. It con- 

 tained six half-fledged baby birds, which, after 

 the fashion of most nestlings, opened their 

 carmine-lined mouths for food as the spectator 

 bent over them. They looked warm and damp, 

 lying there in the broiling sun, and acted as if 

 they were almost suffocated. 



This was only the third bobolink's nest I 

 had ever found. The other two were some- 



