104 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



parent rudeness will have no depressing effect, 

 and on reaching the open country and again in 

 a beaten path, you will wonder why you have 

 never been so inquisitive as to birds before. 



In a morning's outing worthy of the name, 

 if in early summer, the chances are that you 

 will find a bird's nest as you trace the narrow 

 paths of the wood or break one for yourself 

 through a thicket, perhaps the nest of a small 

 flycatcher or of one of the vireos, adepts in 

 the art of catching flies. Pretty structures these 

 that bear close examination, for they are skil- 

 fully built, and no little engineering skill has 

 been brought to bear upon their construction 

 that the wind and rain may not destructively 

 prevail against them. Perhaps a shrill buzzing, 

 as of an angry bee, may startle you, and again 

 and again you look, but in vain, for your 

 assailant. It is an irate humming-bird, whose 

 nest you have unwittingly approached. If 

 you look long and patiently you may find 

 the latter, saddled on some horizontal branch, 

 looking like a small lichen-coated excrescence, 

 but fashioned with infinite care. Such nest- 

 hunting does the birds no harm, and you return 



