THE WOOD THRUSH 



later and in my conservatory early in June hatched from it a moth 

 with a wing-spread of six and three-quarter inches the widest 

 of the species of which I ever have heard. A Woodcock was 

 flushed and an hour spent in searching for her nest, when I re- 

 membered that my quest was for Bell Birds, and returned to my 

 original pursuit. 



I had hunted until despairing when there was a brown flash 

 above my head, and a Bell Bird flew over with a sharp warning 

 chirp ; then I realized I was close to his home and standing still I 

 used my eyes to such good advantage that presently I was look- 

 ing squarely into the big, liquid, startled ones of Mother Bell 

 Bird, as she peered down from an elm thicket a little above me. 



Oh, but she was a beauty! Even in her plain colors, which 

 after all were not so plain, for her back was a rich reddish brown 

 and her breast snowy white, with long irregular markings of 

 black. My plan had been to locate her that morning and go my 

 way for a day's work elsewhere ; but a nest on a dry plate is worth 

 ten in a bush, for the birds have hosts of enemies, and you never 

 know with any certainty when you leave a nest one day that you 

 will find it safe the next. It could be seen at a glance that there 

 was something most unusual about this nest, for it was bright as 

 the back of the bird that brooded on it; so I hurried to the car- 

 riage for my step-ladder to use as a tripod, and a camera, and I de- 

 cided that I would bring a big one. 



I felt that this was a rare find, and so it proved. The nest 

 was the most surprisingly individual piece of bird architecture 

 imaginable. Disdaining corn -husk, straw, and other material al- 

 most invariably chosen by their species, this pair of birds, with 

 untold patience and labor, had digged from the ground the roots 

 of red raspberries and nettles and woven them into a deep cup 

 while wet. There was not a particle of lining and very little other 

 foundation: nothing at all in the body of the nest except these 



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