WHAT I HAVE DONE WITH BIRDS 



There came the Quail to brood. I wonder why. Did she like 

 company? Did she prefer to keep house where she could hear 

 sounds and see people? Had she lingered about the place until 

 she had lost all fear of it and hoped in the noise and proximity to 

 people to find protection from her natural enemies, the snake, 

 squirrel and Owl? 



Bob never knew the bird was there until Gypsy made a point 

 at her, and then she was brooding on seventeen eggs. The nest 

 was constructed on the ground. The builder had slipped through 

 the long hair-like grasses until she found a slight depression 

 sheltered by a small spray of wild grape-vine. There she sat 

 down and turned around until she worked out a flat bowl-shaped 

 place, from which she picked away the blades of green grass, 

 using the dead ones for lining.- The taller grasses closed over her 

 and the grape-vine screened her from the sight of the man, but 

 not from the scent of the dog. 



Her nest was a beauty. I like to think she placed it there 

 because she had put herself under Bob's protection. This idea of 

 shy wood-things creeping up to him, because they knew he was 

 their friend and champion, makes me proud that he is my friend 

 also. Those seventeen eggs were freshly laid, bluish white and 

 sharply pointed at one end. The picture they made was a novelty 

 on account of their number. 



After we had secured a fair study of the nest we waited for 

 the young. We knew our ornithology well enough to be aware 

 that there was small hope of getting them, for a Quail lays all her 

 eggs before she begins to brood, so that the young emerge at once 

 and travel before their down is quite dry. While we waited for 

 these nestlings I had rare luck in securing two good studies of 

 grown Quail over in the Limberlost, so I did not bother these old 

 ones. 



