TANGLE-LEAF PAPERS. 51 



as well as of careful study by naturalists, their 

 peculiarities have all been catalogued, and 

 every intelligent person knows that a hare, by 

 crouching flat on a dry gray spot of earth, so 

 blends with its surroundings as to become 

 almost undistinguishable, and that a quail, sit- 

 ting in a handful of dry brown leaves is as 

 effectually hidden as if buried. So a grouse 

 among the tangled twigs of a bare winter tree 

 is a very difficult object to discover. A mead- 

 ow-lark, in a sunny clover-field, melts, so to 

 speak, into the general confusion of brown, 

 green, and gold, so that it becomes indeed a 

 " sightless song." The humming-bird makes 

 its nest of lichen, and places it in a tuft of the 

 same on some wrinkled bough, usually at or 

 near a crotch ; and the little bird, while on the 

 nest, is so in harmony with its surroundings 

 that none but the keenest eye would distin- 

 guish her from one of the little ruffled knots 

 on the bark beside her. The whippoorwill 

 builds no nest. Its eggs are deposited-on the 

 ground at a place where the bird's colors and 

 those of her eggs perfectly harmonize with the 

 general tone of their surroundings. I have 

 known this bird to roll her eggs from spot to 

 spot while incubating, evidently for the pur- 

 pose of keeping them and herself within a 

 proper entourage, this being her only means of 

 protection from hawks, owls, and other ene- 

 mies. The common dove places its shallow, 

 ill-made nest in what appear to be the most 

 exposed places, but the bluish ash-gray color 

 of the bird's plumage runs so evenly into the 

 tone of its surroundings that one might look 

 in vain for any sign of a living thing in the 



