8 IN THE FLAT-WOODS. 



my hat. " Let us have a look at this 

 stranger," he appeared to be saying. Pos- 

 sibly his nest was not far off, but I made no 

 search for it. Afterwards I found two nests, 

 one in a low stump, and one in the trunk of 

 a pine, fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. 

 Both of them contained young ones (March 

 31 and April 2), as I knew by the continual 

 goings-in-and-out of the fathers and mothers. 

 In dress the brown-head is dingy, with little 

 or nothing of the neat and attractive appear- 

 ance of our New England nuthatches. 



In this pine-wood on the road to Moultrie 

 I found no sign of the new woodpecker or 

 the new sparrow. Nor was I greatly disap- 

 pointed. The place itself was a sufficient 

 novelty, the place and the summer weather. 

 The pines murmured overhead, and the pal- 

 mettos rustled all about. Now a butterfly 

 fluttered past me, and now a dragonfly. 

 More than one little flock of tree swallows 

 went over the wood, and once a pair of 

 plushes amused me by an uncommonly pretty 

 lover's quarrel. Truly it was a pleasant 

 hour. In the midst of it there came along 

 a man in a cart, with a load of wood. We 

 exchanged the time of day, and I remarked 



