FEATHERED GEMS 



varmint, but the other housekeeper was at home and 

 allowed me to photograph her there, amid the low 

 mountain laurel, as nice as you please. She left the 

 nest when I moved the camera very near, but came 

 back in a few minutes and then let me work and change 

 plates without using the thread, except the first time. 

 The other ground-builder is the Northern Yellow- 

 throat. It prefers a bushy swamp, with bunches of 

 grass, in one of which latter the nest is usually placed. 

 Not only by flushing the bird, but also by looking in 

 tussocks when the bird began to scold, I have spied 

 the nest. It also builds on the ground among thickets 

 or in weeds, and on top of a skunk cabbage in a swamp 

 it often finds a desirable location for its tenement. 

 Such a home I once found with five eggs, and returned 

 to it when the young were just ready to fly. Only two 

 of them were alive, for the nest had partly tipped over 

 and the other three had fallen out and starved or chilled 

 within a foot of home, the parents not having had 

 intelligence enough to help them back, feed or brood 

 them, which they surely could have done. Just as I 

 reached the nest the sky had become overcast. The 

 two remaining young were determined to escape, but 

 I tied them on a log, and, with the camera set close to 

 them, the male came again and again and fed them. 

 It was simply maddening that the sun would not shine 

 out for even one instant. I secured portraits of the 

 young by timed exposures, but the few feeding pictures 

 that I attempted had hardly a trace of an image on the 



