180 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



but two when the thought seemed to occur to him 

 that he might be doing better, and he began to fill 

 his pockets. Two, four, six, eight of my berries 

 quickly disappeared, and the cheeks of the little 

 vagabond swelled. But all the time he kept eating, 

 that not a moment might be lost. Then he hopped 

 off the cup, and went skipping from stone to stone 

 till the brook was passed, when he disappeared in 

 the woods. In two or three minutes he was back 

 again, and went to stuffing himself as before ; then 

 he disappeared a second time, and I imagined told 

 a friend of his, for in a moment or two along came 

 a bobtailed chipmunk, as if in search of something, 

 and passed up, and down, and around, but did not 

 quite hit the spot. Shortly, the first returned a 

 third time, and had now grown a little fastidious, 

 for he began to sort over my berries, and to bite into 

 them, as if to taste their quality. He was not long 

 in loading up, however, and in making off again. 

 But I had now got tired of the joke, and my berries 

 were appreciably diminishing, so I moved away. 

 What was most curious about the proceeding was, 

 that the little poacher took different directions each 

 time, and returned from different ways. Was this 

 to elude pursuit, or was he distributing the fruit to 

 his friends and neighbors about, astonishing them 

 with strawberries for lunch? 



But I am making slow headway toward finding 

 the birds '-nests, for I had set out on this occasion 

 in hopes of finding a rare nest, — the nest of the 

 black-throated blue-backed warbler, which, it seemed. 



