BIRDS AND BATTLEFIELDS. 189 



a leafy tree preening lier feathers, while the 

 male barely gave me a glimpse of himself be- 

 fore he scuttled away. For a long time I 

 watched her arranging her toilet, and there 

 seemed to be every ev^idence that she had come 

 from a nest. Suddenly she flitted to another 

 twig, rearranged a feather daintily, and then 

 darted dow^n into a small thicket of blackberry 

 bushes. A nest, I felt sure. After waiting 

 a while to let her get settled on the supposed 

 nest, I cautiously crept near. She flew down 

 on the dead leaves, where she held herself side- 

 wise, her feathers fluifed up, her wings out- 

 spread and drooping, and her head canted 

 oddly to one side, as if she were looking down 

 at something of intense interest to herself. 



Slipping away again, I waited for a quarter 

 of an hour, and then returned to the thicket, 

 moving slowly and quietly. As I bent over 

 the bushes, I heard the bird flutter up from the 

 leaves, and fly chirping away. Sure of a nest, 

 I sought for one among the leaves for a long 

 time, but in vain. When I returned to the 

 place some three hours later, no bird and no 

 nest were to be seen. It struck me that the 

 creepers and sparrows just described had gone 

 into a conspiracy to mystify me. 



Much more satisfactory was my quest on a 



