6 BIRD STORIES FROM BURROUGHS 



and a fifth, and a sixth, till she becomes very much 

 excited. "What could have happened? am I 

 dreaming? has that beetle hoodooed me?" she 

 seems to say, and in her dismay she lets the bug 

 drop, and looks bewilderedly about her. Then she 

 flies away through the woods, calling. " Going 

 for her mate," I said to Ted. " She is in deep 

 trouble, and she wants sympathy and help." 



In a few minutes we heard her mate answer, 

 and presently the two birds came hurrying to the 

 spot, both with loaded beaks. They perched 

 upon the familiar limb above the site of the nest, 

 and the mate seemed to say, "My dear, what 

 has happened to you? I can find that nest." 

 And he dived down, and brought up in the empty 

 air just as the mother had done. How he win- 

 nowed it with his eager wings ! how he seemed 

 to bear on to that blank space ! His mate sat re- 

 garding him intently, confident, I think, that he 

 would find the clew. But he did not. Baffled and 

 excited, he returned to the perch beside her. 

 Then she tried again, then he rushed down once 

 more, then they both assaulted the place, but it 

 would not give up its secret. They talked, they en- 

 couraged each other, and they kept up the search, 

 now one, now the other, now both together. 

 Sometimes they dropped down to within a few 

 feet of the entrance to the nest, and we thought 



