THE WARBLER 15 



As for mo , I can never hear the song of this 

 warbler without remembering the whole series of rustic 

 pleasures which the burden of its strain promised me 

 in my turbulent childhood. It calls to my mind my 

 father's garden with its thick border of raspberry 

 bushes, its boxwood and junij)er trees scattered about 

 the walks. In the heart of one of these juniper trees, 

 I discovered one morning the nest of a black cap 

 warbler. Placed at the root of the branches, hardly 

 two feet from the ground, it consisted on the outside 

 of moss and dry grass, inside, of finely interwoven haii-. 

 This nest contained five light brow^n, spotted eggs with 

 darker veins. I could not resist the naughty childish 

 caprice of stealing one of the jjretty spotted eggs. The 

 next day when I came to watch the brooding mother, 

 I found that the eggs were broken and the nest aban- 

 doned. 



Warblers are unmanageable on this point : as soon 

 as the hand of a stranger has broken in upon the 

 mystery of their nest, considering the intrusion of this 

 unknown enemy as an ill omen for their future family, 

 ihcy prefer destroying the whole, beginning to lav their 

 eggs elsewhere where the brood will be less unlucky. 

 Both father and mother watch theii- |)rogeniture with 

 equal solicitude, relieving each other to brood and show- 

 ing an attachment to their newly hatched voung which 

 lasts as long as the season. They keep their young tledg- 



