96 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



best two of my bird-adventures. During the morn- 

 ing I had followed a wood-road which led through 

 dark woods into a marsh, and then up a wooded 

 slope. I sat down to rest, and suddenly saw a gray 

 bird fly up into a tree, alight on a limb, and before 

 my eyes suddenly disappear. Bringing my field- 

 glasses to bear, I discovered saddled on that limb a 

 lichen-covered nest, which looked so exactly like the 

 limb itself that, if the bird had not shown me her 

 home, I would never by any chance have discovered 

 it. It was a far climb for an invalid, but I felt that 

 life was not worth living unless I could have a closer 

 look at this strange nest which had flashed into sight 

 right before my eyes. Gruntingly I clambered up the 

 trunk, and for the first time looked into the beauti- 

 ful nest of the wood pewee. It was lined with down 

 and held four perfect eggs, pearly-white and flecked 

 with heavy brown and black spots. 



For a long time I sat perched aloft, rejoicing over 

 every perfect detail of that nest and the eggs, and 

 studying the gentle, silent, anxious parent birds, of a 

 dark-brownish-gray with two white wing-bars and 

 whitish under-parts. I went back to lunch feeling 

 that my last day had been well spent. However, the 

 best was yet to be. I realize from later experiences 

 in bird 's nesting that all this has an impossible sound, 

 but I can only say that I am setting down the happen- 

 ings of this week of treasure-hunting exactly as they 

 came, and as they appear in the battered canvas- 

 bound note-book in which I scrawled my field-notes 

 that summer. The Wild Folk had evidently decided 



