104 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



like turquoises from a nest directly on the ground, 

 lined neatly with red-brown pine-needles and with 

 dry dark green moss on the outside, the hall-mark of 

 the nest of the hermit thrush. In front of it was a 

 cushion of partridge-berry vines, with their green 

 leaves and red berries, while blueberry fronds, cov- 

 ered with tender green leaves, arched over the nest, 

 and sprays of ground-pine sheltered its sides. It was 

 a fitting home for the beautiful twilight singer. The 

 eggs of a hermit thrush actually seem to gleam from 

 the ground, unlike the mottled and speckled and 

 clouded eggs of most ground-nesters. 



As the sun came up, the whole mountain-side rang 

 with bird-songs. There was the abrupt strain of the 

 magnolia warbler, who to my ears says, " Wheedle, 

 wheedle, whee-chee." The black-and-white warbler 

 sang like a tiny, creaking wheel, as he ran up and 

 down tree-trunks. Down in the meadows beyond 

 the lake, the long- tailed brown thrasher said, "Hello, 

 hello! Come over here, come over here. There he 

 goes, there he goes. Whoa, whoa, ha-ha, ha-ha." 

 If you do not believe my reading of his song, listen 

 the next time one sings to you, and see if these are 

 not his exact words. Overhead we often heard the 

 squeal of the red-shouldered hawk, sounding almost 

 like the cry of the blue jay. Then there was the loud 

 yet gentle warble of the purple finch; and once we 

 saw a beautiful rose-red male and his gray-brown 

 wife feeding each other on a limb like a pair of love- 

 birds. Another song which was interesting to me, 

 because almost new, was that of the solitary or blue- 



