The Warbler and His Ways 129 



incubation, but I half believe the feathered owners would 

 have overlooked this had it not been for the pair of blue 

 jays that buccaneered that patch of fir. While we were 

 getting a picture I saw them eyeing us curiously, but they 

 slunk away among the dark firs squawking jay-talk about 

 something I didn't understand. Two days later we skirted 

 the clump to see if the warblers had been too severely 

 shocked by the camera. In an instant I translated every 

 syllable of what that pair of blue pirates had squawked. 

 The scattered remnants of the nest and the broken bits 

 of shell told all. 



These gray warblers, however much they were upset 

 by the camera-fiend and blue jay raid, were not to be 

 undone. They actually went to housekeeping again within 

 forty yards of the old home site. The new nest was 

 placed in a fir sapling very like the first, but better hidden 

 from marauding blue jays. It was far better suited to the 

 photographer. Just at the side of the new site was the 

 sawed-off stump of an old fir upon which we climbed 

 and aimed the camera straight into the nest. There, 

 instead of four, were only two small nestlings. They 

 stretched their skinny necks and opened wide their yellow- 

 lined mouths in unmistakable hunger. 



The moment the mother returned and found us so 

 dangerously near her brood she was scared almost out 

 of her senses. She fell from the top of the tree in a flutter- 

 ing fit. She caught quivering on the limb a foot from 

 my hand. Involuntarily I reached to help her. Poor 

 thing! She couldn't hold on, but slipped through the 

 branches and clutched my shoe. I never saw such an ex- 

 aggerated case of the chills, or heard such a pitiful high- 



