THE NIDOLOGIST 89 
entirely; nevertheless the feat accomplished 
by that little body in little more than a 
week seems to me most remarkable. 
The eggs are pale greenish-blue, slightly 
sprinkled and speckled, principally at the 
greater end, with small brownish and black- 
ish spots, dots and freckles, with occasionally 
pale shell markings of lilac. In size they 
range slightly smaller than eggs of domes- 
tica. 
_ The Maryland Yellow-throat (G. ¢richas) 
has thus far been able to conceal its nest 
from me except in one instance. I have not 
yet taken the eggs, though the species is 
fairly common here, and a sense of pique 
has rendered my search persistent. I did, 
however, discover a nest containing young 
and it was, for me, such a feat that I re- 
count the simple circumstances. 
I find these birds nearly always dodging 
in and out through the labyrinth of flags 
and rushes that thrive in the shallows 
about the edges of our sloughs and small 
lakes. At such aspot on July 9g I spent an 
entire afternoon, and in that time scarcely 
stepped outside a space fifteen feet square, 
and the secret I sought to solve was, where 
in that small area, and under my very nose, 
was concealed a nest of the Yellow-throat 
containing a brood of hungry young that 
kept both parent birds most busily em- 
ployed to feed? 
The bank of the lake at this point was 
abrupt and about three feet in height, but 
supporting up and down its face a consid- 
erable growth of grasses and mint. Out 
into the knee-deep water in front grew a 
dense tangle of bullrush and flags, and just 
where the water lapped the foot of the 
green bank, there again and again did the 
birds disappear carrying larve for their 
young; and, anon, reappearing at nearly the 
same place, they quickly vanished among 
the reeds or away over the bank and the 
hillside back of it. And then would I 
once and again and again search every 
nook and cranny where those birds had en- 
tered, and for half a dozen yards along the 
foot of that bank and up its face examining 
most minutely every scrap of vegetation 
many weary times over and over, and then 
nonplussed withdrew ten feet and awaited 
the return of the birds once more. The 
lapping of the water had partly undermined 
a boulder embedded in the gravel at the 
foot of the bank, and here among the fra- 
grant mint the male once disappeared with 
some hideous fragment of catapiller. Now 
who ever heard of a nest of the Yellow- 
throat in a veritable burrow underneath a 
bigrock? And yet in this case that seemed 
a possibility, and I waited only for the re- 
appearance of the artful bird in the same 
place to assail the spot confidently till the 
ends of my fingers were fairly worn out, 
and my folly seemed too evident. 
If the proof had been less absolute that 
an actual nest really existed within reach 
of my hand I had abandoned the search in . 
despair. As it was, what Mr. Peabody 
calls ‘‘pride of nidological acumen’’ kept 
me at my post. And, finally, when the 
shadows were lengthening, and the three- 
mile tramp homeward was loom.ng up as 
an imminent necessity, back came the 
worm-laden female from over the hill-side 
and incautiously went in from the verge 
instead of the base and quickly reappeared 
with empty bill at the new point of entry, 
and the secret was out! 
In all their previous journeys to the nest 
each one had entered at the foot of the 
bank and crept up the face to the verge, 
completely concealed from me by the rank 
growth of vegetation, and on leaving the 
nest they had simply retraced their steps to 
the foot again and so completely deceived 
me. Growing out of the verge was a rank, 
thick tussock of grass fully two feet high. 
In the center of this, barely off the ground, 
was set down the singular nest with an 
inside diameter of one and three-fourths 
inches and an outside depth of four inches, 
composed entirely of dried cat-tail leaves, 
with an inside lining of fine dried grasses 
and the tops of red-top grass, anda few 
horse hairs, all held firmly in place by the 
stiff, upright grass stems surrounding it. 
Within appeared three well-fed youngsters 
at least two, and probably three, weeks out 
of the shell. Some weeks later, after the 
young had flown, I stopved here long 
enough to gather up and carry away this 
nest as a souvenir. 
Major Bendire’s assertion (p. 311, Vol. 
II, of ‘‘Life Histories’’) that the best way 
to settle the uncertainties over the differ- 
ences between the Little Flycatcher (Z. 
pusillus) and Traill’s Flycatcher (Z. puszllus 
trailliz) is to recognize but one species is 
probably good sense. And almost all the 
sections on puszl/us in Coues’ Key, p. 442, 
is given over to such discussion as leads 
one to question whether there is any such 
difference as warrants a separation into dif- 
ferent sub-species. 
