OF ARTS AND SCIENCES IO9 



account of passing vehicles or pedestrians, although they moved 

 within five feet of her, if they continued on their way. So it 

 was our wont to walk by within this near range of her bright 

 eyes and simply exchange happy glances with her. These 

 nestings were first nestings, observed in early June and begun 

 in May. 



What was probably a second nesting of a pair, for it occurred 

 in haying time toward the middle of July, ended in a sad fatality. 

 The bird had placed her nest about fifty feet out from the wood- 

 border in the open field, where the grass was scanty, due to 

 almost continuous shade, and low plant growth had sprung up. 

 When the mowing-machine made its rounds, wholly unsuspect- 

 ingly to the farmer driving it, the knife-blade in its five or six 

 feet outreach decapitated the faithful mother upon her nest. 

 She evidently had sat courageously and let the horses pass thus 

 near, never suspecting that behind them reached a blade long 

 enough to bring her instant death. The tragedy was discovered 

 when later in the day the ground was raked, the headless body 

 was seen, three dispersed eggs were found, and the nest torn 

 from its setting. The eggs proved to have fully developed 

 birdlings in each. 



The latest nesting which has come under observation 

 occurred in the middle of August not far below the summit of 

 Boy Mountain beside the footpath. On August 16, in 1906, 

 when the female bird left her nest, it contained three eggs. 

 This would seem probably to have been a third nesting of the 

 bird that season. The late continuance of song on the part of 

 many birds every season suggests that three nestings may be 

 the rule rather than the exception. For there is little abatement 

 of song in the hot July days, and it comes forth as spontaneously 

 in all the heat of midday as before sunrise and after sunset. 



So much at home about houses do some of the Hermits feel 

 that we have had them come and alight upon our hitching-post 

 by the front door and upon the posts for the clothesline back of 

 the house. I have seen them also perching on the guard-fencing 

 of our neighbor's tennis-court, quite as robins are wont to do. 



