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NESTS AND EGGS OE 
dilemma, it is no easy matter to make a selection. Enamored by so many, 
he is sometimes disposed to be gay and trifling, and to dally with the 
affections of some pure and simple-minded female. Thus we often find 
him carrying on the most cruel flirtations. But when he does bring him- 
self earnestly down to the business of choosing a partner, he does not go 
about it in an uncertain, hesitating manner, but makes his selection with 
promptness and dispatch. The successful female, proud of the honor con- 
ferred, at the call of her lord, forsakes the group of unmarried sisters, and 
follows him wherever he listeth. The warmest tokens of affection and 
regard are lavished upon her, and woe to the rival who should appear 
upon the scene while these amours are being enacted. Should such an 
event come to pass, the intruder is at once assailed, and a long and 
bloody encounter ensues, which results in the death of one or other of 
the combatants, but never in the complete vanquishment of the defensive 
party. Instances are known where males have treated their first choice 
with cruel indifference, and ultimately deserted them. Such things could 
not otherwise be when the question of polygamy comes to be considered, 
for it is a fact that both birds are slightly promiscuous in their inter- 
course, although the tendency is more marked upon the part of the male. 
The time of mating varies somewhat with climate, and with the con- 
ditions of the season. In the warm sections of the South it occurs late in 
March, or early in April. But further north where winter still lingers 
with frosty coldness, the latter month is well nigh verging to its close, or 
gliding into the succeeding period, before this essential business is thought 
of. But when it does happen, with but little waste of time, the female 
withdraws herself from the society of her partner, and repairs to a secluded 
spot in the midst of a woods, where usually beneath a clump of evergreen, 
or a pile of brush, or perhaps a fallen log or projecting rock, she hastily 
scratches a few dry leaves together for a nest. Here she deposits, one by 
one, in as many consecutive days, her complement of six to twelve eggs, 
and immediately enters upon the duties of incubation. In this she is 
alone, the male lending no assistance, not even indirectly by attending to 
