120 IN THE MIDDLE COUNTRY. 



chosen, I found, to my dismay and regret after- 

 ward, that no sign of a nest was there, or there- 

 about. 



Another pair went farther, and held out even 

 more delusive hopes ; they actually built a nest 

 in a neighbor's yard, the family in the house 

 maintaining an appearance of the utmost indif- 

 ference, so as not to alarm the birds till they 

 were committed to that nest. For so little does 

 madam regard the labor of building, and so 

 fickle is she in her fancies, that she thinks no- 

 thing of preparing at least two nests before she 

 settles on one. The nest was made on a big 

 branch of cedar, perhaps seven feet from the 

 ground, a rough affair, as this bird always 

 makes. In it she even placed an egg, and then, 

 for some undiscovered reason, it was abandoned, 

 and they took their domestic joys and sorrows 

 elsewhere. 



But now, at last, word came to me of an occu- 

 pied nest to be seen at a certain house, and I 

 started at once for it. It was up a shady coun- 

 try lane, with a meadow-lark field on one side, 

 and a bobolink meadow on the other. The lark 

 mounted the fence, and delivered his strange 

 sputtering cry, the first I had ever heard 

 from him (or her, for I believe this is the fe- 

 male's utterance). But the dear little bobolink 

 soared around my head, and let fall his happy 



