A QUIET PAIR. 35 



their nursery stood in a pleasant bit of woods, 

 left wild, on the shore of the Great South Bay, 

 "where precious qualities of silence haunt," and 

 the delicious breath of the sea mingled with the 

 fragrance of pines. One must be an enthusiast 

 to spy out the secrets of a bird's life, and this 

 pair of golden-wings made more than common 

 demand on the patience of the student, so silent, 

 so wary, so wisely chosen, their sanctum. Be- 

 fore the door hung a friendly oak branch, heavy 

 with leaves, that swayed and swung with every 

 breeze. Now it hid the entrance from the east, 

 now from the west, and with every change of the 

 vagrant wind the observer must choose a new 

 point of view. 



Then the birds ! Was ever a pair so quiet ? 

 Without a sound they came, on level path, to 

 the nest, dropped softly to the trunk, slipped 

 quickly in, and, after staying about one minute 

 inside, departed as noiselessly as they came. 

 Their color, too! One would think a bird of 

 that size, of golden-brown mottled with black, 

 with yellow feather-shafts and a brilliant scarlet 

 head-band, must be conspicuous. But so per- 

 fectly did the soft colors harmonize with the 

 rough, sun-touched bark, so misleading were the 

 shadows of the leaves moving in the breeze, and 

 so motionless was the bird flattened against the 

 trunk, that one might look directly at it and not 

 see it. 



