A TINY TILTER. 121 



was new to me, but also his homestead. The nest 

 was about twenty feet from the ground, and bore 

 so close a resemblance to the bark of the tree, that 

 I never should have found it, had not the artless 

 tell-tales themselves betrayed their secret. 



A bird lover cannot rest content until he has 

 seen the inside of a nest, and so I resolved to climb 

 that sapling, although it was quite slender and 

 free of branches for at least fifteen feet from the 

 ground. It was hard work, and the feat was not 

 very gracefully performed, I suppose ; but I could 

 not stop for looks, and so at length I scrambled up 

 to the nest. Oh, how the birds tsipped^ and cried, 

 and scolded, and dashed at me, coming within a 

 few feet of my head, so that I could feel the wind 

 of their fluttering wings ! No doubt they thought 

 a huge bugaboo was about to play havoc with 

 their cottage in the tree. 



It was a dainty structure, neatly and compactly 

 built of downy material, fine, wiry grass and horse 

 hair, the cup being quite deep and lined with 

 feathers, and the walls high, ornamented with 

 lichens, contracted and deftly turned at the rim. 

 I forget hoAV many eggs it contained ; three, I 

 think, and they looked like gems studding the bot- 

 tom of the nest. Their ground-color was a delicate 



