AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 397 



after nearly a week, curiosity having taken a strong hold on me, I de- 

 termined to investigate and regardless of the ear splitting chatter of 

 the wrens within a foot or two of my head, I raised the lid of the box. 

 Until now I had satisfied myself with merely peeking in through the 

 holes. When I looked in from above a gallon of innocent looking 

 sticks with a hole down through one side was all that met my eye. I 

 thought the sticks looked rather thin on the opposite side however, 

 and on drawing them aside, the real nest was revealed to me. It con- 

 tained six eggs. The entrance was so hidden by projecting sticks, as 

 to be unnoticeable. Of course when one visited the nest daily, as I did, 

 he would be almost sure to discover the ruse sooner or later, but a 

 casual passerby would in all probability have, on peeping through the 

 hole into the box, taken for granted that the nest was not yet complet- 

 ed and gone on his way while the little wren settled down on her eggs, 

 none the worse for the seemingly narrow escape. In the course of a 

 couple of weeks every egg had transformed into a helpless, featherless, 

 skinny mite of a bird. A few days later, knowing the harvesting sea- 

 son was rapidly nearing, I thought I would transfer the young wrens- 

 from the twine box to another I had fastened up nearby, but when I 

 went to the nest I found it empty. Perhaps my frequent visits had 

 made the wrens feel uneasy and they had removed their young ones to 

 a new home. 



Another occurrence that seems to prove a bird's intelligence was the 

 act of a mother quail. 



A few years ago, in an out of the way corner of the farm, 1 surprised 

 a family of Bob-whites in the act of taking a dust bath. We discovered 

 each other — they and I — at about the same moment. Without a mo- 

 ment's delay the male whirred away leaving the others to care for 

 themselves as best as they could. There were nearly a score of little 

 ones, and from the glimpse I got of them, as they scurried here and 

 there over the trampled weeds, they were but a few days out of the 

 shell. In less time than it takes to tell it they had disappeared, in a 

 manner as mysteriously as it was sudden. Not until the last of the 

 little ones was out of sight did I turn my attention towards the mother 

 bird, who was stumbling and tumbling over the weeds and gradually 

 working her way toward some standing weeds a short distance away. 

 She lingered as if to attract my attention as much as possible. They 

 had all taken me so by surprise that I had not left the spot from which 

 I had first seen them. After they had all hidden I walked to the place 

 where the little ones had been, but not one of them could I see. All 

 was very quiet for perhaps ten minutes and then I heard the mother 



