@ 
THE SONG-SPARROW. LY 
egos before they were discovered. In 1875 they built a 
nest in the same place, and the year before on the ground 
against the wall just outside. A pair has been around 
there for a great while; a nest being found within a hun- 
dred feet of the spot for some six or seven years. Wher- 
ever placed, it is a model and poetic bird-dwelling. 
“What care the bird has taken not to disturb one straw 
or spear of grass, or thread of moss! You cannot approach 
it and put your hand into it without violating the place 
more or less, and yet the little architect has wrought day 
after day, and left no marks. There has been an excava- 
tion, and yet no grain of earth appears to have been moved. 
If the nest had slowly and silently grown, like the grass 
and the moss, it could not have been more nicely adjusted 
to its place and surroundings. There is absolutely nothing 
to tell the eye it is there. Generally a few spears of dry 
grass fall down from the turf above, and form a slight 
screen before it. How commonly and coarsely it begins, 
blending with the débris that les about, and how it refines 
and comes to the centre, which is modelled so perfectly, 
and lined so softly.” 
Grasses are the timbers of the house—coarse stalks upon 
the outside, fine stems and soft leaves twined within; the 
edge of the nest overcast. It seems to be well proved that 
12 
