THE BLUEBIRD 5 



it fairly well replaced, one end standing in the 

 mud of the shallow water and the other resting 

 against a tree. This left the hole to the nest 

 about ten feet below and to one side of its former 

 position. Just then we heard the voice of one of 

 the parent birds, and we quickly paddled to the 

 other side of the stream, fifty feet away, to watch 

 her proceedings, saying to each other, " Too 

 bad ! too bad ! " The mother bird had a large 

 beetle in her beak. She alighted upon a limb a 

 few feet above the former site of her nest, looked 

 down upon us, uttered a note or two, and then 

 dropped down confidently to the point in the 

 vacant air where the entrance to her nest had 

 been but a few moments before. Here she hov- 

 ered on the wing a second or two, looking for 

 something that was not there, and then returned 

 to the perch she had just left, apparently not a 

 little disturbed. She hammered the beetle rather 

 excitedly upon the limb a few times, as if it were 

 in some way at fault, then dropped down to try 

 for her nest again. Only vacant air there ! She 

 hovers and hovers, her blue wings flickering in 

 the checkered light ; surely that precious hole 

 must be there ; but no, again she is baffled, and 

 again she returns to her perch, and mauls the 

 poor beetle till it must be reduced to a pulp. 

 Then she makes a third attempt, then a fourth, 



