The Birds and Poets 99 



Returning to the nest between the daisy stems, I 

 found the female on the nest. This time I made a 

 careful examination of her, and found it was a lark 

 sparrow, a very rare resident in this area. With 

 its nest there in the sand and gravel, I thought of 

 Edith Thomas' verse on the vesper sparrow: 



"Upon a pasture stone, 

 Against the fading west, 

 A small bird sings alone, 

 Then dives and finds its nest." 



The lark sparrow may be easily distinguished 

 from the vesper sparrow, for though both have the 

 white tail feathers, the former's tail is rounded, and 

 the tips of the outer feathers have more white, and 

 there are conspicuous white lines over the eye and 

 through the crown of the head. 



Our camp hostess at Bailey Falls showed us a 

 cardinal's nest which she had discovered a few 

 days before about 100 feet from the camp. The 

 nest was about ten feet from the ground in a small 

 bush. The female bird stayed on the nest until we 

 pulled the branches aside to look at her, and then 

 she quietly slipped out on the opposite side. We 

 drafted an old table into service, and climbing 

 upon it looked into the nest, which contained three 

 pink-white eggs, marked with light brown spots. 

 The nest was made of strips of bark, coarse grass, 

 and rootlets, thrown together in neat yet careless 

 manner with all the art which the country lass 

 displays in doing up her hair. 



