TALKS WITH YOUNG OBSERVERS 295 



holes where the bird had seized it; otherwise 

 it had been very carefully handled. For some 

 days I had been convinced that a pair of vireos 

 had a nest in my maple, but much scrutiny had 

 failed to reveal it to me. 



Only a few moments before the cowbird 

 appeared I had seen the happy pair leave the 

 tree together, flying to a clump of trees lower 

 down the slope of the hill. The female had 

 evidently just deposited her egg, the cowbird 

 had probably been watching near by, and had 

 seized it the moment the nest was vacated. 

 Her plan was of course to deposit one of her 

 own in its place. 



I now made a more thorough search for the 

 nest, and soon found it, but it was beyond my 

 reach on an outer branch, and whether or not 

 the cowbird dropped one of her own eggs in 

 place of the one she had removed I do not 

 know. Certain am I that the vireos soon 

 abandoned the nest, though they do not always 

 do this when hoodwinked in this way. 



I once met a gentleman on the train who 

 told me about a brood of quails that had 

 hatched out under his observation. He was 

 convinced that the mother quail had broken the 

 shells for the young birds. He sent me one of 

 the shells to convince me that it had been 

 broken from the outside. 



At first glance it did appear so. It had been 

 cut around near the large end, with the excep- 

 tion of a small space, as if by regular thrusts or 

 taps from a bird's beak, so that this end opened 



