of 



the backs of several saplings which it had borne down 

 in its fall. I crept up on this for a look around, and 

 almost tumbled off at finding myself staring directly 

 into the dark, cavernous hollow of an immense log 

 lying on a slight rise of ground a few feet ahead of 

 me. 



It was a yawning hole, which at a glance I knew 

 belonged to the buzzard. The log, a mere shell of a 

 mighty white oak, had been girdled and felled with an 

 axe, by coon hunters, probably, and still lay with one 

 side resting upon the rim of the stump. As I stood 

 looking, something white stirred vaguely in the hole 

 and disappeared. 



Leaping from my perch, I scrambled forward to the 

 mouth of the hollow and was greeted with hisses from 

 far back in the dark. Then came a thumping of bare 

 feet, more hisses, and a sound of snapping beaks. I 

 had found my buzzard's nest. 



Hardly that, either, for there was not a feather, 

 stick, or chip as evidence of a nest. The eggs had 

 been laid upon the sloping cavern floor, and in the 

 course of their incubation must have rolled clear 

 down to the opposite end, where the opening was so 

 narrow that the buzzard could not have brooded them 



197 



