84 THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS. 



turbed her several times, to note her ways. There 

 came to be something almost appealing in her looks 

 and manner, and she would keep her place on her 

 precious eggs till my outstretched hand was within a 

 few feet of her. Finally, I covered the cavity of the 

 nest with a dry leaf. This she did not remove with 

 her beak, but thrust her head deftly beneath it and 

 shook it off upon the ground. Many of her sympa- 

 thizing neighbors, attracted by her alarm note, came 

 and had a peep at the intruder and then flew away, 

 but the male bird did not appear upon the scene. 

 The final history of this nest I am unable to give, as 

 I did not again visit it till late in the season, when, of 

 course, it was empty. 



Years pass without my finding a brown-thrasher's 

 nest ; it is not a nest you are likely to stumble upon 

 in your walk ; it is hidden as a miser hides his gold 

 and watched as jealously. The male pours out his 

 rich and triumphant song from the tallest tree he can 

 find, and fairly challenges you to come and look for 

 his treasures in his vicinity. But you will not find 

 them if you go. The nest is somewhere on the outer 

 circle of his song ; he is never so imprudent as to 

 take up his stand very near it. The artists who draw 

 those cozy little pictures of a brooding mother-bird 

 with the male perched but a yard away in full song, 

 do not copy from nature. The thrasher's nest I found 

 was thirty or forty rods from the point where the 

 male was wont to indulge in his brilliant recitative. 

 It was in an open field under a low ground-juniper. 



