that nest, and at Thanksgiving time one one hundred years ; and, third, when the 

 of the home-coming guests, who was an young are big enough to fly, they know 

 enthusiastic kindergartener in the city, how, and just go up without any practic- 

 persuaded those generous nature stu- ing." All this can be proved to any one 

 dents to let her take their treasure to the who will go in nesting time to a cliff over- 

 poor children who seldom saw the com- hanging the river just below Cloverdale, 

 monest kind of a hang-bird's nest, and and who will accept the testimony of 

 in that kindergarten it may be seen to- some of the most reliable and respectable 

 day. , nien who have honored that place in the 



Another entry in the club book was past century. 



this: "Birds building on the ground, es- ^You must go in a boat and hug the 

 pecially Vesper Sparrows, locate if pos- shore; of course you need a member of 

 sible where they have a fine outlook, and the club for guide ; at an unexpected mo- 

 give great attention to the arrangement ment you are told to look over your head, 

 of the front yard." and there, glued to a shelf of rock so 



This was discovered when Emily Cly- small as to be entirely covered by the 

 mer took her small brother Jo up in the same, is the nest! No porch, or even 

 "side hill pasture" to see the finest moun- doorstep, beyond its wall an overhang- 

 tain view in all the county, and to find ing roof of rock above, a shoreless ex- 

 wild strawberries ; while picking the ber- panse of water below ; now, if some one 

 ries they found what was afterward called can keep the boat steady, and you have 

 the juniper house ; this was a Vesper the nerve to stand at the highest point of 

 Sparrow's home, roofed by green grow- the bow, then by reaching over your head 

 ing juniper. you can gently touch some fuzzy bits of 



Everybody knows that the prophet Eli- life in the nest. Now you know the first 

 jah could never have sat and wept under and last of the facts recorded are correct : 

 a New England juniper tree; no tree is there is the nest on the inaccessible cliff; 

 less high or more nearly horizontal than there are the birds, and if they did not fly 

 this ; in fact, we call it a bush where it up and out into the world the first time 

 is big this one was not larger than Em- they stood on the edge of the nest, would 

 ily Clymer's two hands, and growing they not be in the dark water below, in- 

 straight out from descending ground, it stead of coming back to the old home for 

 formed a flat, green roof to the Sparrow a hundred years? 



homestead; then, while my lady sat upon The evidence of successive occupation 

 her nest, she looked out of her tiny front for a century is this : The present family 

 door, across a gently sloping lawn, upon of Walkers father and children have 

 a whole range of mountains. But most watched that nest, never finding it empty 

 remarkable of all were the ornamental a summer for twenty years. Old Deacon 

 shade trees, for just ten inches from the Walker, grandfather of our club mem- 

 door, on either side, waved two big bers who, of course, initiated their lath- 

 brakes, symmetrical in size and shape ; er proved that Phoebes had hatched in 

 they gracefully arched across the en- the cliff nest during eighty years pre- 

 trance, and were to the Sparrow domicile vious, in this wise : After he had stood 

 as the giant elms to the big Clymer home- guard forty years, as the deacon loved to 

 stead. A sketch of this beautiful resi- relate, didn't his Uncle Israel who had 

 dence was made by a member of the club been spending just those two-score years 

 for cameras were not common in Go- in the South come home one spring 

 verdale then the picture cannot be evening, and the very next morning that 

 taken from the club book, but I think we ancient worthy demanded a boat and a 

 can see it all with our mind's eye. boy to take him under the old Phoebe's 



Here is one of the most astounding nest on the ledge, which he affirmed had 

 statements in that book of many obser- never been without tenants during the 

 vations : "Some Phoebes are like the forty years before he left Cloverdale ? 

 Golden Eagle in three ways first, they So there are the figures and facts show- 

 build on rocky and inaccessible cliffs, ing how not only the nest, but bird love 

 second, they build in the same place for and bird lore had come down through the 



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