vm 



BIRDS'-NESTING 



"DIRDS'-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 par- 

 tridge himself starting up with spread tail, and walk- 

 ing 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 of the fox, which a sharp nose detects 

 here and there, and which is a good perfume in the 



