: 38 :] 



RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS AND NEST 



June 1, 1857. A red-wing's nest, four eggs, low 

 in a tuft of sedge in an open meadow. What Cham- 

 pollion can translate the hieroglyphics on these 

 eggs.'* It is always writing of the same character, 

 though much diversified. While the bird picks up 

 the material and lays the egg, who determines the 

 style of the marking.? When you approach, away 

 dashes the dark mother, betraying her nest, and then 

 chatters her anxiety from a neighboring bush, where 

 she is soon joined by the red-shouldered male, who 

 comes scolding over your head, chattering and utter- 

 ing a sharp phe-phee-e. 



Journal, ix, 397. 



June 6, 1856. How well suited the lining of a 

 bird's nest, not only for the comfort of the young, 

 but to keep the eggs from breaking ! Fine elastic 

 grass stems or root-fibres, pine-needles, or hair, or 

 the like. These tender and brittle things which you 

 can hardly carry in cotton lie there without harm. 



Journal, viii, 368. 



July 30, 1852. What a gem is a bird's egg, espe- 

 cially a blue or a green one, when you see one, broken 

 or whole, in the woods! I noticed a small blue egg 

 this afternoon washed up by Flint's Pond and half 

 buried by white sand, and as it lay there, alternately 



