THE FAMILIAR BIRDS 



dry leaves and grasses, with an unusually deep and 

 smooth cavity lined with very fine vegetable fibre 

 that looked like gold thread. Evidently a finished 

 nest, I thought, but it was empty, and there were 

 no birds about. It did not have the appearance of 

 a nest that had been "harried," as the Scotch boys 

 say, but of one just that moment finished and wait- 

 ing for its first egg. A week later I returned to the 

 place and was delighted to find that it was really a 

 live nest. The setting bird had slipped off on my 

 approach so slyly that I had not seen her. The nest 

 contained four small, delicate white eggs marked 

 with fine black specks on their larger ends; these 

 were completely dominated by a large, vulgar- 

 looking cowbird's egg. Presently two anxious birds, 

 one of them strikingly marked with yellow, black, 

 white, and blue-gray, appeared in the branches 

 above my head, and began peering nervously 

 down upon me and uttering a faint "sip," "sip." 

 "Warblers," I said; and, as they flitted excitedly 

 about me, I soon recognized the golden-winged 

 warbler — a rare bird in my locality, and one whose 

 nest I had never before seen. "What a pretty co- 

 incidence," I said — "the nest of the golden- 

 winged warbler at the foot of a clump of goldenrod, 

 and lined with gold thread!" The old, neglected 

 farm lane had never before yielded me such a 

 treasure. Presently a male chestnut-sided warbler, 

 whose song I had been hearing near by — "This, 



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