THE BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER 103 



would pause here and find this nest, anyhow. To 

 make a sure thing of it, we determined to watch 

 the parent birds till we had wrung from them 

 their secret. So we doggedly crouched down and 

 watched them, and they watched us. It was dia- 

 mond cut diamond. But as we felt constrained 

 in our movements, desiring, if possible, to keep 

 so quiet that the birds would, after a while, see 

 in us only two harmless stumps or prostrate logs, 

 we had much the worst of it. The mosquitoes 

 were quite taken with our quiet, and knew us 

 from logs and stumps in a moment. Neither were 

 the birds deceived, not even when we tried the 

 Indian's tactics, and plumed ourselves with green 

 branches. Ah, the suspicious creatures, how they 

 watched us with the food in their beaks, abstain- 

 ing for one whole hour from ministering to that 

 precious charge which otherwise would have been 

 visited every few moments ! Quite near us they 

 would come at times, between us and the nest, 

 eying us so sharply. Then they would move off, 

 and apparently try to forget our presence. Was it 

 to deceive us, or to persuade himself and his mate 

 that there was no serious cause for alarm, that the 

 male would now and then strike up in full song 

 and move off to some distance through the trees ? 

 But the mother bird did not allow herself to lose 

 sight of us at all, and both birds, after carrying 



