178 THE CUCKOO AND HER NEST. 



snapped their mouths shut, cuddled together in the 

 bottom of the nest and fell asleep. 



The mother was evidently sorely agitated, al- 

 though she tried hard to appear calm. She sat 

 quietly on a twig near at hand as long as she could, 

 watching me with her dark, expanded eyes, occa- 

 sionally giving vent to her distress by a low, gut- 

 tural quook, quook, and then, unable to bear the 

 suspense longer, she flitted to another perch and 

 another, feeling, no doubt, that movement would 

 help her to overcome her perturbation. Poor 

 thinor 1 Not for the world would I have harmed 

 her two infants, so beautiful in her eyes, so homely 

 in mine. But where was that much-needed per- 

 sonage, her husband? Oh, he (brave soldier) was 

 skulking somewhere in the screening trees, helping 

 his spouse to ward off her enemies, like the man 

 who helped Betsy kill the bear. 



Other duties interfered with my making another 

 call on my newly formed acquaintances for a week 

 or more, and when I did return, the nestlings had 

 spread their untried pinions and hied awa}^ 



On the seventh of August I found another 

 cuckoo's nest in the densest seclusion of the woods, 

 built in the fork of a sapling about seven feet from 

 the iriound. This nest was constructed of the 



