188 GLIMPSES OF WILD LIFE 



and exposed place. There was no cover by 

 which they could approach, and no concealment 

 anywhere. The nest was a hasty affair, as if 

 the birds' patience at nest-building had been 

 about exhausted. Presently an egg appeared, 

 and then the next day another, and on the 

 fourth day a third. No doubt the bird would 

 have succeeded this time had not man inter- 

 fered. In cultivating the vinevards the horse 

 and cultivator had to pass over this very spot. 

 Upon this the bird had not calculated. I de- 

 termined to assist her. I called ray man, and 

 told him there was one spot in that vineyard, 

 no bigger than his hand, where the horse's foot 

 must not be allowed to fall, nor tooth of culti- 

 vator to touch. Then I showed him the nest, 

 and charged him to avoid it. Probably if I 

 had kept the secret to myself and let the bird 

 run her own risk, the nest would have escaped. 

 But the result was that the man, in elaborately 

 trying to avoid the nest, overdid the matter; 

 the horse plunged, and set his foot squarely 

 upon it. Such a little spot, the chances were 

 few that the horse's foot would fall exactly 

 there ; and yet it did, and the birds' hopes were 

 again dashed. The pair then disappeared from 

 my vicinity, and I saw them no more. 



The summer just gone I passed at a farm- 

 house on the skirts of the Northern Catskills. 

 How could I help but see what no one else of 

 all the people about seemed to notice, — a little 

 bob-tailed song-sparrow building her nest in a 

 pile of dry brush very near the kitchen door. 



