NEAR VIEWS OF WILD LIFE 



the nest and seemed to be more contented than 

 abandoned birds usually are. The next night was 

 unseasonably cold, and I expected to find the nest- 

 lings dead in the morning; but they were not, and, 

 strangely enough, for babes in the wood or rather 

 on a stone wall, they seemed to be doing well. 

 Maybe the mother bird is still caring for them, I 

 said to myself, and I ambushed myself across the 

 road opposite to them and watched. 



I had not long to wait. The mother sparrow 

 came slyly up and dropped some food into an open 

 mouth and disappeared. 



Who does not feel a thrill of pleasure when, in 

 sauntering through the woods, his hat just brushes 

 a vireo's nest? This was my experience one 

 morning. The nest was like a natural growth, 

 hanging there like a fairy basket in the fork of a 

 beech twig, woven of dry, delicate, papery, brown 

 and gray wood products, just high enough to escape 

 prowling ground enemies and low enough to escape 

 sharp-eyed tree enemies. Its safety was in its 

 artless art. It was a part of the shadows and the 

 green-and-brown solitude. The weaver had bent 

 down one of the green leaves and made it a part of 

 the nest; it was like the stroke of a great artist. 

 Then the dabs of white here and there, given by 

 the fragments of spiders' cocoons all helped to 

 blend it with the flickering light and shade. 



I gently bent down the branch and four con- 



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