NEST-HUNTING. 97 
of many birds. A place for day-dreams truly, and 
the summer warblers were the dryads and nymphs 
flitting through the realms of fancy. If all birds were 
as astute as the summer warbler, the race of cow- 
buntings would soon become extinct, or would soon 
have to change their methods of propagation, and go 
to rearing their own families. Our little strategist, 
when she comes home and finds a cowbird’s egg 
dropped into her nest, begins forthwith to add another 
story, and thus leaves the interloper in the cellar, 
with a floor between it and her warm breast. It 
is a genuine case of “being left out in the cold.” 
I have found several of these exquisite towers that 
were three stories high, on the top of which the 
little bird sat perched like a goddess on the summit 
of Olympus. (My simile may seem a trifle far- 
fetched, but I shall let it stand.) But why, you 
dear little sprite, do you not merely pitch the offen- 
sive egg out of the nest, instead of going to all the 
trouble of building a loft ? No answer, save an 
untranslatable trill, comes from the throat of the 
dainty minstrel.? 
Some years ago I witnessed a curious bit of bird- 
behavior that I have never seen described in any of 
the numerous books on ornithology which I have 
1 Mr. Eldridge E. Fish, to whom reference has already 
been made, after reading this article, which first appeared 
in a weekly paper, suggested in a letter that the little warbler 
could not well remove the intruded egg without breaking it, 
which would spoil her nest altogether. Hence she simply 
adds another story to her dwelling. This is doubtless the 
true explanation. 
Z 
