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 

 &quot; sightless song.&quot; 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 



