WHAT I HAVE DONE WITH BIRDS 



nests! Why, right there material could be secured to last me 

 three years. 



"Bob ! What kinds ?" I cried. 



"Oh, Robins, Cat-birds, Cuckoos, Larks, Doves, Redbirds, 

 Jays, Red-winged Blackbirds and a lot of little fine stuff of 

 which I don't know the names." 



"A lot of little fine stuff!" That meant Warblers, Finches, 

 Vireos and Linnets. 



"And the prettiest thing in the lot," said Bob, "the one you 

 must get first, is the nest of just a common old Cat-bird. I never 

 saw anything to beat it in the nest line." 



That same day I started a series of drives to Bob's lease that 

 continued every fair day throughout the season. The trip was 

 a delight. The way lay across the levee east of the village, where 

 every attraction of wood life was to be found growing in a tangle, 

 and a babel of bird-song swelled early and late, led always by the 

 Bell Bird I had pictured a few days before and now claimed as 

 my especial property. After crossing the bridge, the green line 

 of the river, decorated by the white bloom of hawthorn and wild 

 plum, lay always in sight. At Bob's lease a sudden curve brought 

 the water up to the road, and then swept it away again, leaving a 

 pressing invitation to all and sundry to follow and learn from 

 the Wabash itself just why people wrote poems and sang songs 

 about it. 



The lease lay on both sides of the road. On the right as you 

 approached was the Aspy farm, where the Bobolink strutted the 

 rod-line; adjoining it on the same side was Stanley's, where the 

 Shrikes homed in the oak, Kingbirds in the orchard and Larks in 

 the meadow. 



On the left lay a strip of high, grassy, wooded pasture, cut into 



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