8 IN THE FLAT-WOODS. 
my hat. “Let us have a look at this 
stranger,” he appeared to be saying. Pos- 
sibly his nest was not far off, but I made no 
search for it. Afterwards I found two nests, 
one in a low stump, and one in the trunk of 
a pine, fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. 
Both of them contained young ones (March 
31 and April 2), as I knew by the continual 
goings-in-and-out of the fathers and mothers. 
In dress the brown-head is dingy, with little 
or nothing of the neat and attractive appear- 
ance of our New England nuthatches. 
In this pine-wood on the road to Moultrie 
J found no sign of the new woodpecker or 
the new sparrow. Nor was I greatly disap- 
pointed. The place itself was a sufficient 
novelty, — the place and the summer weather. 
The pines murmured overhead, and the pal- 
mettos rustled all about. Nowa butterfly 
fluttered past me, and now a dragonfly. 
More than one little flock of tree swallows 
went over the wood, and once a pair of 
phcebes amused me by an uncommonly pretty 
lover’s quarrel. Truly it was a pleasant 
hour. In the midst of it there came along 
aman in a cart, with a load of wood. We 
exchanged the time of day, and I remarked 
