NEST-HUNTING. 93 
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cream of its history ;’’ than which nothing could be 
truer or more aptly expressed. 
No wonder the poets have so often been thrown 
into lyrical moods over the homesteads of the birds ! 
Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster’s poem on “The Build- 
ing of the Nest” is perhaps not unfamiliar to most 
readers ; but one stanza is so graceful and rhythmi- 
cal that it begs for quotation at this point : — 
“They ’I1] come again to the apple-tree — 
Robin and all the rest — 
When the orchard branches are fair to see 
In the snow of blossoms dressed, 
And the prettiest thing in the world will be 
The building of the nest.” 
In one of my rambles I found an abandoned 
towhee bunting’s nest containing three eggs, and 
could not help speculating as to the cause of its 
desertion. Might there have been a quarrel 
between husband and wife, making a separation 
necessary? I am loath to believe it, although, if 
certain acute observers are correct, divorce is not 
wholly unknown in the bird community. But in 
this case I am inclined to think that some enemy 
had destroyed the female, for a male flitted about 
in the bushes, calling a good deal and singing at 
intervals, and there seemed to be a plaintive note 
in his song, as if he might be chanting an elegy. 
At all events, the pair that built the nest had had 
their tragedy. 
Every bird-student must admit that his quest for 
nests often ends in disappointment, because many 
