THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS. 29 
red-eyed vireo is one of the most artfully placed in 
the wood. It is just beyond the point where the eye 
naturally pauses in its search ; namely, on the extreme 
end of the lowest branch of the tree, usually four or 
five feet from the ground. One looks up and down 
and through the tree, — shoots his eye-beams into it 
as he might discharge his gun at some game hidden 
there, but the drooping tip of that low horizontal 
branch — who would think of pointing his piece just 
there? If a crow or other marauder were to alight 
upon the branch or upon those above it, the nest 
would be screened from him by the large leaf that 
usually forms a canopy immediately above it. The 
nest-hunter, standing at the foot of the tree and look- 
ing straight before him, might discover it easily, were 
it not for its soft, neutral gray tint which blends so 
thoroughly with the trunks and branches of trees. 
Indeed, I think there is no nest in the woods — no 
arboreal nest —so well concealed. The last one I 
saw was pendent from the end of a low branch of a 
maple, that nearly grazed the clapboards of an un- 
used hay-barn in a remote backwoods clearing. I 
peeped through a crack and saw the old birds feed 
the nearly fledged young within a few inches of my 
face. And yet the cow-bird finds this nest and drops 
her parasitical egg in it. Her tactics in this as in 
other cases are probably to watch the movements of 
the parent bird. She may often be seen searching 
anxiously through the trees or bushes for a suitable 
nest, yet she may still oftener be seen perched upon 
some good point of observation watching the birds as 
they come and go about her. There is no doubt that, 
in many cases, the cow-bird makes room for her own 
illegitimate egg in the nest by removing one of the 
