A PUZZLE IN BIRDS 



of the five pretty eggs and allowed me to come quite 

 near, but she crouched down so deep into the hollow 

 that a picture showed nothing but her bill. 



Then there is the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. The 

 male is a beautiful black and white bird with a rose- 

 colored spot on his breast and under each wing, and is 

 a sweet singer, with clear, liquid notes. But the female 

 is a plain brownish little lady, looking like an enlarged 

 sparrow. They are moderately common in many local- 

 ities, and it would be well if they were more so, for 

 they have a habit which will commend them to all who 

 know of it. If they are seen in the garden, do not as- 

 sume that they are working mischief ; though sometimes 

 they eat buds, they are mostly insectivorous and are 

 among the few birds that will eat potato bugs. I have 

 known them to go day after day to the potato patch to 

 feed upon these vermin as long as they lasted. I tell 

 Ned that they are more useful in that line than he, for 

 he is not fond of "picking potato bugs," though his 

 mother tells that when he was a baby she found him 

 one day munching a horrid black squash bug. But in 

 time he proved not to be insectivorous after all ! 



This grosbeak builds a frail nest of small sticks and 

 rootlets in a low tree or bush in a swamp or thicket, 

 usually from five to ten feet from the ground. Both 

 birds incubate and they are not very shy, only the nest 

 is rather hard, usually, to get at to photograph, unless 

 one raise the camera on stilts and focus, say, from a 

 step-ladder. In one case a nest was out on a horizontal 



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