78 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



noted but two nests the summer I am speaking of: 

 one in a barn failed of issue, on account of the rats, 

 I suspect, though the little owl may have been the 

 depredator; the other, in the woods, sent forth 

 three young. This latter nest was most charmingly 

 and ingeniously placed. I discovered it while in 

 quest of pond-lilies, in a long, deep, level stretch 

 of water in the woods. A large tree had blown 

 over at the edge of the water, and its dense mass of 

 upturned roots, with the black, peaty soil filling 

 the interstices, was like the fragment of a wall 

 several feet high, rising from the edge of the lan- 

 guid current. In a niche in this earthy wall, and 

 visible and accessible only from the water, a phcebe 

 had built her nest and reared her brood. I paddled 

 my boat up and came alongside prepared to take the 

 family aboard. The young, nearly ready to fly, 

 were quite undisturbed by my presence, having 

 probably been assured that no danger need be appre- 

 hended from that side. It was not a likely place 

 for minks, or they would not have been so secure. 



I noted but one nest of the wood pewee, and 

 that, too, like so many other nests, failed of issue. 

 It was saddled upon a small dry limb of a plane- 

 tree that stood by the roadside, about forty feet 

 from the ground. Every day for nearly a week, as 

 I passed by, I saw the sitting bird upon the nest. 

 Then one morning she was not in her place, and 

 on examination the nest proved to be empty, — 

 robbed, I had no doubt, by the red squirrels, as 

 they were very abundant in its vicinity, and ap- 



