278 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 



year after year. Audubon even proved in one case that the 

 young returned with their parents, thus increasing the little 

 colony which already existed on his plantation. No bird is 

 more peaceable or less jealous than the Pewee, who looks hos- 

 pitably upon all his neighbors, and it is common to find several 

 pairs on the same estate, living in happiness and peace. 



As I sit down to write out of doors, I find that my attention 

 is but little confined to my biographical labors. I have placed 

 in the shrubbery around the piazza, several bits of cotton-wool, 

 which readily attract the attention of the various birds who 

 are now building. ' A male Redstart is singing in the oak on 

 the bank, while his mate cautiousty approaches a vine, from 

 which my chair is scarcely a yard distant, and, seizing several 

 shreds of the wool, flies off. Eager to discover her home, just 

 as I have already discovered those of nearly all her friends 

 (and mine too), I step on the lawn to watch her motions. She 

 flies to the nearest group of trees and disappears, while I fix 

 my eyes upon the cotton-wool, to watch her return ; but, when 

 some sound causes me to turn my head, I see her pulling at an- 

 other piece, in the opposite direction. How cautious she is of 

 betraying her purpose, and what a vacillating course she takes 

 from tree to tree ! Is she not evidently an unusually cautious 

 bird? A neighbor, one of her own species, without waiting for 

 warmer weather, has already finished a nest, and laid eggs, in a 

 birch on the edge of the swamp, and a " Black-throated Green," 

 who built in the piazza-vines, last year, showed no hesitation 

 in building while persons were near. But here is the Red- 

 start again ; she is now refreshing herself by catching flies. 

 It is after nine o'clock, and she has probably worked for sev- 

 eral hours ; but she denies herself rest, and again approaches 

 the vine, this time to gather several little strips of bark, with 

 which she flies directly to the orchard. As she enters a pear- 

 tree, pauses a moment, and then flies off, I feel sure that her 

 nest is there, and so post myself close to the trunk of a neigh- 

 boring apple-tree, motionless and silent, to await her return. 

 She immediately reappears, and, apparently not realizing my 

 presence, enters her nest, which is already shaped, and firmly 



