JOURNAL OP MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



57 



we creep forward, expecting to find 

 a bird of considerable size. There he 

 goes! Why, you little midget; could 

 that be you, making all that noise? 

 A little mouse-like bird, about three 

 inches long, darts from out a clump 

 of dead brush, alights on a dead twig, 

 crouches nervously, as though unde- 

 cided what to do next, and pours 

 forth one of the sweetest and most 

 unique bird songs we ever listened to. 

 This is the Winter Wren (Troglodites 

 hiemalis). He breaks off short, in 

 the middle of his song, and nervously 

 flits to a hollow log, lying on the 

 ground and moss grown. He darts 

 into the end of the log, and all is sil- 

 ence for a moment. We hear two or 

 three sharp alarm notes, and he dash- 

 es off to his mate and his mossy home 

 in some hollow stump or upturned 

 roots of a tree ;but try as hard as we 

 may, we are not able to locate this 

 nest. In trying to locate this nest, we 

 hear the love call of a chicadee 

 Parus atricapillus) and as we ap- 

 proach a short dead stub ,in the edge 

 of a wet slough, we are met by Mr. 

 Black-cap with a sharp challenge: 

 Chic-a-dee-dee-dee! He scolds only a 

 moment, for he is too busy to pay 

 too much attention to us, for in that 

 stub are seven or eight little Black- 

 caps, and all so hungry! 



We wonder how they store away so 

 many little fluffy fellows in so small 

 a cavity. Passing on through a thick 

 belt of hemlock and fir, we near the 

 outer edge of the woods. Beyond us 

 are gray birches and alders. We 

 hear a low stifled sound, of some 

 bird scolding, way down in his throat, 

 yet he fears we shall hear him. He 

 is scolding to himself. We see a blue 

 streak flit past and decide this to be 

 a Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata). 

 Pushing through the thick evergreens, 

 we emerge into the alders and gray 

 birches, and soon we spy a bulky nest 

 of sticks about eight feet up, in a 



small pine. We gather several of the 

 saplings together, enough to hold one 

 of us, and assisted by the other, raise 

 up and look in. Three eggs meet our 

 gaze, and the two Jays drop down up- 

 on us unexpected and utter their 

 harsh cries, then skulk off and hide in 

 the thick tops of the hemlocks near. 

 Pik! Pik! Whe, Whew! and an Alder 

 Flycatcher (Empidonax trailli alnor- 

 um) alights on a low twig before us, 

 flutters his wings and stares at us 

 with his large, wondering eyes. He 

 sees a fly and off he darts, and as he 

 catches it on the wing, we hear the 

 loud snap of his bill. He seems not 

 to have much to do, yet he is happy. 

 Nest building will soon begin. 



We spy a nest well conceal- 

 ed in a clump of hardhacks. Per- 

 haps this was his nest last year. 

 From across a wet sag comes 

 a clear whistle. What's that he said? 

 Old Jack Peabody, Peabody, Peabody! 

 Crossing the wet sag, we flush a bird 

 from the grass beside a clump of high 

 bush cranberries. The alarm note 

 tells us it is a sparrow. The nest 

 with four eggs, well concealed in the 

 tall, young grass, meets our gaze and 

 the owner flits nervously from bush 

 to bush. It is the White Throated 

 Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis). 

 Passing on to a higher ridge we 

 flush a Thrush from a bulky nest of 

 leaves and weeds, placed near the 

 base of a scrub spruce bush. Four 

 greenish blue eggs are in the nest. 

 Wilson's Thrush (Turdus fuscescens) 

 you exclaim, and we pass on. Among 

 the thick alders, as we push our way 

 through, now and then wiping the 

 cobwebs from our eyes, we locate a 

 slight nest of twigs. Can this be a 

 nest? you say. We approach it and 

 on this slight platform of sticks, lays 

 two roundish, blue eggs, and perched 

 on a limb, a few feet away, sits a 

 Black-Billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus ery- 

 thropthalmus) lazily watching us, her 



