72 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



from the ground. One looks up and down and 

 through the tree, — shoots his eye-beams into it as 

 he might discharge his gun at some game hidden 

 there, but the drooping tip of that low horizontal 

 branch, — who would think of pointing his piece 

 just there ? If a crow or other marauder were to 

 alight upon the branch or upon those above it, the 

 nest would be screened from him by the large leaf 

 that usually forms a canopy immediately above it. 

 The nest-hunter, standing at the foot of the tree 

 and looking straight before him, might discover it 

 easily, were it not for its soft, neutral gray tint 

 which blends so thoroughly with the trunks and 

 branches of trees. Indeed, I think there is no nest 

 in the woods — no arboreal nest — so well concealed. 

 The last one I saw was pendent from the end of a 

 low branch of a maple, that nearly grazed the clap- 

 boards of an unused hay-barn in a remote back- 

 woods clearing. I peeped through a crack, and 

 saw the old birds feed the nearly fledged young 

 within a few inches of my face. And yet the cow- 

 bird finds this nest and drops her parasitical egg in 

 it. Her tactics in this as in other cases are probably 

 to watch the movements of the parent bird. She 

 may often be seen searching anxiously through the 

 trees or bushes for a suitable nest, yet she may still 

 oftener be seen perched upon some good point of 

 observation watching the birds as they come and go 

 about her. There is no doubt that, in many cases, 

 the cowbird makes room for her own illegitimate 

 egg in the nest by removing one of the bird's own. 



