FAR AND NEAR 



So on the morrow I returned, and carefully se- 

 creted myself on a mossy bank a few yards from the 

 pile of driftwood. Presently the parent bird came 

 with food in its beak, but instantly spying me, though 

 I fancied that in my recumbent position and faded 

 gray clothes I simulated well an old log, she grew 

 alarmed and refused to approach the nest. 



She flitted nervously about from point to point, 

 her attention directed to me, and uttering a sharp, 

 chiding note. Soon her mate came, and the two birds 

 flitted about me, peering, attitudinizing, scolding. 

 The mother bird is always the bolder and more 

 demonstrative on such occasions. I was amused at 

 her arts and feints and her sudden fits of alarm. 

 Sometimes she would quickly become silent, and 

 stealthily approach the entrance of the little cavern 

 in the pile of driftwood; then, her fears and sus- 

 picions reviving, with emphatic chirps she would try 

 again to penetrate the mystery of that motionless, 

 prostrate form on the bank. 



The dead branch of a tree that slanted down to 

 the bed of the stream near me was her favorite perch. 

 Inch by inch she would hop up it, her body mov- 

 ing like a bandmaster's baton, her notes sharp and 

 emphatic, her wings slightly drooping, meanwhile 

 bringing first one eye and then the other to bear 

 upon the supposed danger. 



While she was thus engaging my attention, I 

 saw the male quickly slip into the little cavern with 



194 



