THE NEST IN THE PASTURE SPRUCE. 239 



you wish, to establish one fact, make your arrangements so 

 that your experiment or series of experiments will clearly 

 show what you wish to be proved. This string experiment is 

 the simplest possible, but it is worth trying. 



But we are far enough away from, our nest in the spruce 

 tree. The outer structure we have already analyzed. Inside 

 this is a layer of hair. There is sheep's wool among it, 

 though I do not know of a sheep in the neighborhood. These 

 white horse hairs certainly came from the tail of old Dobbin, 

 though Dobbin and the Deacon, his master, live half a mile 

 away. If there is any other white horse in that vicinity, the 

 graybird knows her neighbors better than I do. This soft 

 white hair, still lying in little parcels just as the industrious 

 bird collected it in her beak, I recognize as the winter coat of 

 the Squire's cow which must have been gathered hair by hair 

 in such places as the cow was wont to rub her sides while she 

 waited for spring to come. Thus three kinds of animals have 

 furnished the second layer of the graybird's nest. 



But there is still a third, softer than any of the others. 

 The widow's hens furnished that, yet her stock is not fairly 

 represented. Here are feathers and feathers, but all of two 

 sorts, either the white hackles from the neck of some white 

 Cochin cock, or the soft, mottled feathers of Plymouth Rock 

 fowls. There are no gaudy bronze and red plumes from the 

 ruffs of strutting barnyard lords ; none of the brown feathers 

 of the Polish, nor black ones from the Spanish fowl. If I 

 did not know better I should think the widow and her neigh- 

 bors raised little else but Plymouth Bocks. On the contrary, 

 they were not abundant in this neighborhood when this 

 nest was made. If I had not seen other nests, I should 

 think' the graybird had "happened" to take these dull, 

 spotted feathers so near her own color. But every nest 



