THE CUCKOO AND HEU NEST. 177 



with my own eyes, instead of through the eyes of 

 the authors I had been reading. 



At my approach the startled bird flew from her 

 nest, but only after I had come quite near, and then 

 she alighted in a sapling only a few feet away, ex- 

 pressing her agitated feelings by a low, appealing 

 quook^ quook. 



The nest was about four feet and a half from the 

 ground and was built of crooked twigs and sticks, 

 some of them quite thick, laid across one another 

 and so interlaced as to make the structure firm and 

 substantial. It was lined with a few dry leaves, 

 strips of fibrous bark, and blossoms from the wild 

 grape-vine. A little log cabin it was in the brier 

 thicket. 



When I found it, it contained two eggs of a 

 glaucous tint, unspotted. Four days later I again 

 visited the spot. Two little bantlings lay on the 

 soft, oval floor of the bird nursery and opened their 

 mouths so wide that they looked like small carmine 

 caves. They were, without exception, the queerest 

 looking and ugliest young birds I have ever seen ; 

 as black as crows and sparsely decorated with long 

 coarse bristles that looked stiff enough for the sLoe 

 maker's sewing. When they found, as they soon 

 did, that I had brought no dinner for them, they 



