102 IN BIRD LAND. 
undulating country stretches away like a billowy sea 
of green. ‘The woods themselves, on the sides 
adjacent to the field, are hemmed and fringed with 
a thick growth of saplings, bushes, and brambles, 
where the feathered husbands sit and hymn their 
joy by the hour to their little mates hugging their 
nests in the clover and the copse. It is a quiet spot, 
— one of Nature’s nunneries. Human dwellings may 
be seen in the distance; but it is seldom that any 
one, save a mooning rambler like myself, goes there 
to disturb the peace of the feathered tenants. 
Here, one summer a few years ago, a pair of 
those wary birds the yellow-breasted chats built a 
nest, which they placed snugly in the blackberry 
bushes that bordered and partly hid the rail-fence. 
I kept close reconnoissance on this little home- 
stead until the nascent inmates were about half- 
fledged, when, to my dismay, every one of them 
was kidnapped by some despicable nest-robber. 
My own sorrow was equalled only by the inexpres- 
sible anguish of the bereaved parents. ‘To add to 
my troubles, a nestful of young indigo-birds came 
to grief in the same way. ‘There must be, it seems, 
a system of brigandage in every realm, be it human 
or faunal. 
A pair of bush-sparrows, however, were more for- 
tunate in their brood-rearing. One day, while 
standing near the fence, I noticed a bush-sparrow, 
bearing an insect in her bill, dart down into the 
clover, a short distance over in the field. I walked 
to the spot, when she flew up with an uneasy chirp, 
