BIRDS'-NESTING. 



BIRDS'-NESTING is by no means a failure, even 

 though you find no birds'-nests. You are sure to 

 find other things of interest, plenty of them. A 

 friend of mine says that, in his youth, he used to go 

 hunting with his gun loaded for wild turkeys, and, 

 though he frequently saw plenty of smaller game, 

 he generally came home empty-handed, because he 

 was loaded only for turkeys. But the student of 

 ornithology, who is also a lover of Nature in all her 

 shows and forms, does not go out loaded for turkeys 

 merely, but for everything that moves or grows, 

 and is quite sure, therefore, to bag some game, if 

 not with his gun, then with his eye, or his nose, or 

 his ear. Even a crow's nest is not amiss, or a den in 

 the rocks where the coons or the skunks live, or a 

 log where a partridge drums, or the partridge him- 

 self starting up with spread tail, and walking a few 

 yards in advance of you before he goes humming 

 through the woods, or a woodchuck hole, with well 

 beaten and worn entrance, and with the saplings 

 gnawed and soiled about it, or the strong, fetid smell 



