THE PHCEBE 29 



The phcebe-bird is a wise architect and perhaps 

 enjoys as great an immunity from danger, both 

 in its person and its nest, as any other bird. Its 

 modest ashen-gray suit is the color of the rocks 

 where it builds, and the moss of which it makes 

 such free use gives to its nest the look of a nat- 

 ural growth or accretion. But when it comes into 

 the barn or under the shed to build, as it so 

 frequently does, the moss is rather out of place. 

 Doubtless in time the bird will take the hint, and 

 when she builds in such places will leave the moss 

 out. I noted but two nests the summer I am 

 speaking of : one in a barn failed of issue, on 

 account of the rats, I suspect, though the little 

 owl may have been the depredator ; the other, in 

 the woods, sent forth three young. This latter 

 nest was most charmingly and ingeniously placed. 

 I discovered it while in quest of pond-lilies, in a 

 long, deep, level stretch of water in the woods. 

 A large tree had blown over at the edge of the 

 water, and its dense mass of upturned roots, with 

 the black, peaty soil filling the interstices, was 

 like the fragment of a wall several feet high, ris- 

 ing from the edge of the languid current. In a 

 niche in this earthy wall, and visible and access- 

 ible only from the water, a phoebe had built her 

 nest and reared her brood. I paddled my boat up 

 and came alongside prepared to take the family 



