226 BESIDE THE GEE AT SALT LAKE. 



study, for I feel little interest in the actions of 

 a bird under the constraint of an unwelcome 

 presence, or in the shadow of constant fear and 

 dread. What I care to see is the natural life, 

 the free, unstudied ways of birds who do not 

 notice or are not disturbed by spectators. Nor 

 have I any pleasure in going about the country 

 staring into every tree, and poking into every 

 bush, thrusting irreverent hands into the myste- 

 ries of other lives, and rudely tearing away the 

 veils that others have drawn around their pri- 

 vate affairs. That they are only birds does not 

 signify to me ; for me they are fellow-creatures ; 

 they have rights, which I am bound to respect. 



I prefer to make myself so little obvious, or 

 so apparently harmless to a bird, that she will 

 herself show me her nest, or at least the leafy 

 screen behind which it is hidden. Then, if I 

 take advantage of her absence to spy upon her 

 treasures, it is as a friend only, a friend who 

 respects her desire for seclusion, who never lays 

 profane hands upon them, and who shares the 

 secret only with one equally reverent and lov- 

 ing. Naturally I do not find so many nests as 

 do the vandals to whom nothing is sacred, but 

 I enjoy what I do find, in a way it hath not 

 entered into their hearts to conceive. 



In spite of my disinclination, we made one 

 more call upon the magpie family, and this time 



