186 GLIMPSES OF WILD LIFE 



within easy hearing distance ! Every morning, 

 as promptly as the morning came, between five 

 and six, he would sing for half an hour from 

 the top of a locust-tree that shaded my roof. I 

 came to expect him as much as I expected my 

 breakfast, and I was not disappointed till one 

 morning I seemed to miss something. What 

 was it? Oh, the thrush has not sung this 

 morning. Something is the matter; and recol- 

 lecting that yesterday I had seen a red squirrel 

 in the trees not far from the nest, I at once 

 inferred that the nest had been harried. Go- 

 ing to the spot, I found my fears were well 

 grounded; every egg was gone. The joy of 

 the thrush was laid low. No more songs from 

 the treetop, and no more songs from any point, 

 till nearly a week had elapsed, when I heard 

 him again under the hill, where the pair had 

 started a new nest, cautiously tuning up, and 

 apparently with his recent bitter experience 

 still weighing upon him. 



After a pair of birds have been broken up 

 once or twice during the season, they become 

 almost desperate, and will make great efforts tc 

 outwit their enemies. The past season my at- 

 tention was attracted by a pair of brown thrash^ 

 ers. They first built their nest in a pasture- 

 field under a low, scrubby apple-tree which the 

 cattle had browsed down till it spread a thick, 

 wide mass of thorny twigs only a few inches 

 above the ground. Some blackberry briers had 

 also grown there, so that the screen was perfect. 

 My dog first started the bird, as I was passing 



