6 ®fj? Wavbter 



And, it was a nest ; and it zvas built. There was no sort of conceal- 

 ment. No site could possibly vary more widely from the norm made known 

 by findings in Utah, along irrigation ditches. And yet, no tyro, most mani- 

 festly, was the builder of that nest. Full two inches thick was the mattress 

 of fine grass built into the top of that half-shorn coarse-grass bog. (But one 

 thing observed, those days, gave me more of surprise: the almost-equally 

 thick Rail nest that had been assembled, blade by blade, beneath that slight 

 wisp of wet, dead grass, :n that little, low bog ; and all carried through an 

 opening in the side that seemed no larger than the runway of a meadow 

 mouse.) No structure of man, beast or bird ever showed more marvelous 

 skill and cunning. Without slightest exaggeration one can say, that not 

 one amateur observer in a thousand would ever examined that boe • in 

 which there was not the remotest vestige of evidence of disturbance, or of 

 anything artificial. 



Diving into a little " island " of seven-foot willows I saw and heard de- 

 licious things. A whilom Yellow Warbler peered down at me. An occas- 

 ional sharp whirr of little wings, just above my head, gave proof that some 

 passing bird had unwittingly discovered me. A single Virginia Rail, drawn 

 thither by manifest curiosity, occasionally cackled his doubt a few feet 

 away, in language marvelously like the grunt of a new born pig. The occas- 

 ional quaint, "Zhay-deal" of an Alder Flycatcher carried me back, vividly, 

 to boyhood days. From the narrow open lagoons, at foot of the western 

 slope of the buttes, a scant eighty rods away, came a charming medley of 

 bird song : Coot, Yellow-headed Black-Bird, an occasional Pied-bill Grebe 

 and many a Sora Rail. From the overflowed coarse-grass area behind me, 

 not a hundred feet, as I had already amply learned, from the domain of one 

 of my pairs of Yellow Rail, the (apparently) sole male Black Rail habitant 

 of the boundless meadow piped his feeble, cheery, "Kick-it, kick-it. kick-it, 

 kick-'e-didjkick-'e-did, kick-'e-did,"-out of the marsh mazes. (I found his 

 nest, five years ago). As I left the willow " bluff' a single witless male Wil- 

 son Phalarope rose whimpering from his one precious egg amid the three- 

 inch dwarf rushes ; and instantly lay, panting and crying, upon his side, 

 not thirty feet away. It must have been a case of first-fatherhood, I guess ; 

 for never did I see a Phalarope, before, make such a fuss over just an egg or 

 eggs. As I approached the Yellow Rail ground for one last search, a Short- 

 billed Marsh Wren or two flew up literally from beneath my feet : (but I was 

 used to that !) Then, just as I reached the swale-edge there dashed into my 

 vision something new, something of rarest occurrence and interest, some- 

 thing I shall never see again. Often, amid the growing short meadow grass, 

 has a Yellow Rail been flushed, at short range ; the whitish tips of the wing- 

 secondaries flashing bewilderingly, for a second or two, ere the bird drops 

 out of sight. But now, out of the nearest edge of the dense dead-grass covert 



