THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS. 33 
bird did not appear upon the scene. The final his- 
tory of this nest I am unable to give, as I did not 
again visit it till late in the season, when, of course, it 
was empty. 
Years pass without my finding a brown-thrasher’s 
nest ; it is not a nest you are likely to stumble upon 
in your walk; it is hidden as a miser hides his gold, 
and watched as jealously. The male pours out his 
rich and triumphant song from the tallest tree he 
can find, and fairly challenges you to come and look 
for his treasures in his vicinity. But you will not find 
them if you go. The nest is somewhere on the outer 
circle of his song; he is never so imprudent as to 
take up his stand very near it. The artists who draw 
those cosy little pictures of a brooding mother-bird 
with the male perched but a yard away in full song, 
do not copy from nature. The thrasher’s nest I found 
was thirty or forty rods from the point where the 
male was wont to indulge in his brilliant recitative. 
- It was in an open field under a low ground-juniper. 
My dog disturbed the sitting bird as I was passing 
near. The nest could be seen only by lifting up and 
parting away the branches. All the arts of conceal- 
ment had been carefully studied. It was the last 
place you would think of looking, and, if you did look, 
nothing was visible but the dense green circle of the 
low-spreading juniper. When you approached, the 
bird would keep her place till you had begun to stir 
the branches, when she would start out, and, just 
skimming the ground, make a bright brown line to 
the near fence and bushes. I confidently expected 
that this nest would escape molestation, but it did not. 
Its discovery by myself and dog probably opened the 
door for ill luck, as one day, not long afterward, when 
