WHAT I HAVE DONE WITH BIRDS 



two kinds of roots. They had dried firmly as spun glass and 

 turned to a bright terra cotta color. The long soaking the flood 

 had given the valley made it possible for the birds to dig these 

 roots ; but how they ever broke them off the size they were is still 

 an unsolved problem. The eggs were a Robin's delicate blue, and 

 in their bright cradle, with the tender green of the elm thicket all 

 about, they made a picture that has to be seen to be appreciated 

 fully. 



After making a record of the nest that was to my satisfaction, 

 I began courting the confidence of the mother bird truly a de- 

 lightful task ! Every morning and almost every evening I visited 

 the nest, each time going a little closer, making longer waits, 

 moving with extreme caution, lest she become frightened, and al- 

 ways going through the operation of setting up the ladder and a 

 small camera in front of the nest, just to accustom her to the pro- 

 cess ; in the hope that I soon could approach near enough to make 

 a study of her as she brooded. 



Sometimes I crept into the thicket in the early morning when 

 the bushes were heavy with dew, when the breath of night lin- 

 gered in the valley and when the Bell Bird and the Grosbeak were 

 singing chants to the rising sun. Sometimes I lingered near the 

 nest until late evening and the woods grew very still for a time, 

 lacking the chirp and chatter of a hundred little heads now tucked 

 in sleep. Then night's sounds would begin to rise in a steady vol- 

 ume all about me. A 'coon that lived in a hollow tree near me 

 could be heard getting ready for his nightly raid, tree-toads would 

 sing intermittently, Whippoorwills set me shivering, and once in 

 June a great golden Eccles Imperialis brushed my cheek and I 

 had to let it go for fear pursuit would startle my bird and undo 

 all my hours of watching with her, yet I would have given much 

 to have captured that beautiful moth. Once while waiting near 

 Mother Bell, climbing the ladder occasionally and softly talking 



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