THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS. 29 



red-eyed vireo is one of the most artfully placed in 

 the wood. It is just beyond the point where the eye 

 naturally pauses in its search ; namely, on the extreme 

 end of the lowest branch of the tree, usually four or 

 *ive feet from the ground. One looks up and down 

 and through the tree, — shoots his eye-beams into it 

 as he might discharge his gun at some game hidden 

 there, but the drooping tip of that low horizontal 

 branch — who would think of pointing his piece just 

 there? If a crow or other marauder were to alight 

 upon the branch or upon those above -it, the nest 

 would be screened from him by the lar^e leaf that 

 usually forms a canopy immediately above it. The 

 nest-hunter, standing at the foot of the tree and look- 

 ing straight before him, might discover it easily, were 

 it not for its soft, neutral gray tint which blends so 

 thoroughly with the trunks and branches of trees. 

 Indeed, I think there is no nest in the woods — no 

 arboreal nest — so well concealed. The last one I 

 saw was pendent from the end of a low branch of a 

 maple, that nearly grazed the clapboards of an un- 

 used hay-barn in a remote backwoods clearing. I 

 peeped through a crack and saw the old birds feed 

 the nearty fledged young within a few inches of my 

 face. And yet the cow-bird finds this nest and drops 

 her parasitical egg in it. Her tactics in this as in 

 other cases are probably to watch the movements of 

 the parent bird. She may often be seen searching 

 anxiously through the trees or bushes for a suitable 

 nest, yet she may still oftener be seen perched upon 

 some good point of observation watching the birds as 

 they come and go about her. There is no doubt that, 

 in many cases, the cow-bird makes room for her own 

 illegitimate egg in the nest by removing one of the 



