Song Birds and Water Fowl 
chicks, in the second were three eggs, and in 
the third two eggs, which, however, were not 
so purely white as phoebes’s eggs usually are. I 
was quite nonplussed, as the nests and eggs all 
appeared fresh, and it seemed incredible that 
three pairs of phoebes, which are not gregarious, 
like swallows, should nest so close together, Not 
to obtrude myself too abruptly upon their fam- 
ily affairs, I waited to see what a couple of days 
might bring forth, since a full set of phoebes’s 
eggs consists of four or five. As the number 
did not increase, I half concluded there had 
been a tragedy in the case, and that a pair of 
cats belonging in the house could unfold a tale 
if they chose. But just then I discovered that 
the nest containing young also had in it three 
unhatched eggs. This seemed to solve the 
mystery, and to exonerate the cats ; for it was 
good evidence that the one pair of phoebes were 
at the bottom of the whole business, and were 
now indulging in their third brood, and that 
the other nests and eggs were the relics of the 
first and second broods, only a part of the eggs 
having hatched in each case. Being the last of 
July it was just the time for the third brood, 
which they sometimes have, the first coming in 
May, and the second in June. 
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