ON THE BEACH AT DAYTON A. 63 



and went to the edge of the thicket to in- 

 spect her work : a bulky affair, nearly 

 done, I thought, loosely constructed of 

 pretty large twigs. I had barely returned 

 to the veranda before the bird appeared 

 again. This time I was in a position to 

 look squarely in upon her. She had some 

 difficulty in edging her way through the 

 dense bushes with a long, branching stick 

 in her bill ; but she accomplished the feat, 

 fitted the new material into its place, re- 

 adjusted the other twigs a bit here and 

 there, and then, as she rose to depart, she 

 looked me suddenly in the face and stopped, 

 as much as to say, " Well, well ! here 's a 

 pretty go ! A man spying upon me ! " I 

 wondered whether she would throw up the 

 work, but in another minute she was back 

 again with another twig. The nest, I should 

 have said, was about four feet from the 

 ground, and perhaps twenty feet from the 

 cottage. Four days later, I found her sit- 

 ting upon it. She flew off as I came up, 

 and I pushed into the scrub far enough to 

 thrust my hand into the nest, which, to my 

 disappointment, was empty. In fact, it was 

 still far from completed ; for on the 3d of 



