528 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



pleasure, on very many early morning, woodland strolls, that 

 I have taken in the woods, note-book in hand, in search of 

 bird-life. But the note-book can but poorly record its beauti- 

 ful song that it pours forth to its Maker, and that blends, so 

 delightfully, with the chorus of voices, and helps to make all 

 Nature so beautiful, on a bright spring morn, that one forgets 

 the cares and perplexities of the day, and soars into a realm 

 of ecstasy and delight, that brings to the mind, more vividly 

 than in any other way, the goodness of the Maker of all that 

 is beautiful. Nor can it record its many delicate movements 

 and pretty ways, as it searches hungrily for the insect life on 

 which it feeds. 



I did not succeed in finding its nest until June 12, 1892, and 

 I remember the day as though it was but yesterday. I was up 

 with the sun in the morning and down in its haunts, fully 

 determined to find the nest of Dendroica virens, as I knew it 

 must breed there. It was on a slight side-hill where the heavy 

 timber, mostly hemlock, beech, birch and maple had been cut 

 off and had grown up to bushes of maple, beech and black- 

 berry about as tall as my head, and very thickly scattered with 

 clumps of hemlock bushes from five to twenty feet tall. (A 

 very much favored breeding resort of the Chestnut-sided War- 

 bler, Redstart and Indigo Bunting). I located a pair of my 

 birds and watched them intently, as they fed leisurely from 

 one clump of trees to another, all the while trying to give the 

 appearance that they had no thoughts of a nest anywhere around. 

 But as they hung around one large clump of hemlocks, I de- 

 cided the nest was in that clump or nearby. The trees were 

 too thick to see the nest, so I ' hung around ' that clump, too. 

 The birds seemed rather nervous at my staying so near it, and 

 their usual drawly notes were uttered in a nervous, rapid way, 

 that I have learned since, is conclusive evidence that the nest 

 is near. After some time patiently waiting, (with a swarm of 

 mosquitoes making life miserable for me) they grew less con- 

 cerned at my close proximity and their song was uttered at 



