NEST-HUNTING. ■ 97 



of many birds. A place for day-dreams truly, and 

 the summer warblers were the dryads and nymphs 

 flitting through the realms of fancy. If all birds were 

 as astute as the summer warbler, the race of cow- 

 buntings would soon become extinct, or would soon 

 have to change their methods of propagation, and go 

 to rearing their own families. Our little strategist, 

 when she comes home and finds a cowbird's egg 

 dropped into her nest, begins forthwith to add another 

 story, and thus leaves the interloper in the cellar, 

 with a floor between it and her warm breast. It 

 is a genuine case of " being left out in the cold." 

 I have found several of these exquisite towers that 

 were three stories high, on the top of which the 

 little bird sat perched hke a goddess on the summit 

 of Olympus. (My simile may seem a trifle far- 

 fetched, but I shall let it stand.) But why, you 

 dear little sprite, do you not merely pitch the offen- 

 sive egg out of the nest, instead of going to all the 

 trouble of building a loft ? No answer, save an 

 untranslatable trill, comes from the throat of the 

 dainty minstrel.^ 



Some years ago I witnessed a curious bit of bird- 

 behavior that I have never seen described in any of 

 the numerous books on ornithology which I have 



1 Mr. Eldridge E. Fish, to whom reference has already 

 been made, after reading this article, which first appeared 

 in a weekly paper, suggested in a letter that the little warbler 

 could not well remove the intruded egg- without breaking it, 

 which would spoil her nest altogether. Hence she simply 

 adds another story to her dwelling. This is doubtless the 

 true explanation. 



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