STUDY UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 67 



pated and more. The clay soil was cut up 

 from fence to fence by cows' feet, and whether 

 it presented an unbroken puddle or a succession 

 of small ones made by the hoof-prints, it was 

 everywhere so slippery that retaining one's foot- 

 ing was no slight task, and of course there was 

 no pretense of a sidewalk. Add to this the dif- 

 ficulty of holding an umbrella against the fierce 

 gusts, and it may be imagined that my pathway 

 that morning was not " strewn with roses." 



In some fashion, however, I did at last reach 

 the thorn-tree, planted my chair in the least wet 

 spot I could find, and, tucking my garments up 

 from the ground, sat down. At first I discarded 

 my unmanageable umbrella, till the raindrops 

 obscuring my opera-glass forced me to open it 

 again. And all these preliminaries had to be 

 settled before I could so much as look at the 

 nest. 



Something had happened, as I saw at once; 

 the manners of the birds were very different 

 from what they had been all these days I had 

 been studying them. Both of them were at the 

 nest when I looked, but in a moment one flew, 

 and the other slipped into her old seat, though 

 not so entirely into it as usual. Heretofore she 

 had been able to hide herself so completely that 

 it was impossible to tell whether she were there 

 or not. Even the tail, which in most birds is 



