An October Outing. 153 



of unsuspected nests. How my pride was af- 

 fected ! All through the early summer I had 

 been boasting. For once, at least, I had had 

 eyes equal to every occasion. Nothing had 

 escaped me, and now, following a daily trodden 

 path, and sometimes at arm's length, I find 

 empty nests, and some of them of birds that I 

 must have overlooked. How little the fi-eld 

 naturalist really knows in comparison with what 

 it is possible to know ! The past summer was 

 the most bird-full I have ever known, and every 

 nest I discovered fired my ambition to find still 

 another and another, and I hunted until the 

 field was exhausted Exhausted ? Here are 

 several that I did not find when they were oc- 

 cupied. Nature issues no bulletins for man's 

 benefit, and the man is not yet born who can 

 keep track of her activities. Seeing a little, we 

 think that little all. It must be remembered, 

 too, that many nests are so slightly constructed 

 that they fall to pieces before the onset of brisk 

 autumnal gales. The many nests that I found 

 some months ago were but a fraction of what 

 were built here on the home meadows ; and 

 what of the broad acres of my several neigh- 



