FIELD AND STUDY 



concentrated my gaze upon the ground and searched 

 it inch by inch, but no nest could I see. Orchard 

 grass grew there in tussocks or stools, and on the 

 lower side of these stools the dry grass of last year 

 sloped down, forming a little thatched roof about 

 their bases; beneath one of these there seemed to be 

 a slight opening; I thrust in my finger and felt the 

 nest, and touched the warm eggs. Never have I seen 

 a more cozy, or cunningly constructed sparrow*s 

 nest. No rain could touch it, and no eye penetrate 

 its secret. 



Last season my sparrow neighbors built in the 

 heart of currant-bushes and rosebushes, but this 

 spring one of them at least has trusted her secret 

 to the keeping of the grass, and, as it has turned 

 out, has had no occasion to regret it. In due time 

 she brought off her brood, and later in the season 

 succeeded again farther down the hill. 



A week or two later, in walking along a secluded, 

 bushy lane leading to the woods, which has been a 

 favorite walk of mine for more than forty years, I 

 chanced upon another secret treasure open to the 

 eye of heaven, which gave me a degree of pleasure 

 greater than any other single incident which my 

 forty years' acquaintance with the old lane had 

 brought me. Encircled by the stalks of a tall-grow- 

 ing weed, I chanced to see upon the ground a deep, 

 bulky, beautifully formed nest. It was a mass of 



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