EYE-BEAMS 127 



paper to leave the branch a moment afterward. 

 The thrush watched it eddy slowly down to the 

 ground, when she seized it and carried it back. 

 She placed it in position as before, stood upon 

 it again for a moment, and then flew away. 

 Again the paper left the branch, and sailed 

 away slowly to the ground. The bird seized it 

 again, jerking it about rather spitefully, I 

 thought; she turned it around two or three 

 times, then labored back to the branch with it, 

 upon which she shifted it about as if to hit 

 upon some position in which it would lie more 

 securely. This time she sat down upon it for 

 a moment, and then went away, doubtless with 

 the thought in her head that she would bring 

 something to hold it down. The perverse 

 paper followed her in a few seconds. She 

 seized it again, and hustled it about more than 

 before. As she rose with it toward the nest, 

 it in some way impeded her flight, and she was 

 compelled to return to the ground with it. 

 But she kept her temper remarkably well. 

 She turned the paper over and took it up in 

 her beak several times before she was satisfied 

 with her hold, and then carried it back to the 

 branch, where, however, it would not stay. I 

 saw her make six trials of it when I was called 

 away. I think she finally abandoned the rest- 

 less fragment, probably a scrap that held some 

 " breezy " piece of writing, for later in the sea- 

 son I examined the nest and found no paper 

 in it* 



