90 Summer Studies of Birds and Books chap. 



added to the outside of the structure — a feature that 

 I have never seen abroad ; and a few hairs had been 

 worked into the lining. I began, however, to fear 

 that it might be forsaken, for I thought I saw signs 

 of trespassers in its neighbourhood, and once I was 

 baffled and alarmed to find a ploughboy at work 

 within twenty yards of it. I fancied too that it 

 might turn out to be nothing more than the work of 

 an eccentric Sedge Warbler, for a pair of those excit- 

 able birds had once come very close to me while I 

 was looking at it. But I sent for Mr. Macpherson 

 from London to come and share my anxieties : my 

 other two witnesses of last year being, the one in 

 South America — or rather on his way home — and 

 the other deep in mathematical problems in hot 

 examination rooms at Oxford. Macpherson came on 

 the 24th, and I showed him the nest that evening ; 

 it was still without eggs, and I was beginning to 

 despair of seeing any, for on the Monday following 

 I must start for my holiday, — one more brief holiday 

 in the Alps. 



Next morning, as I was dressing, my friend broke 

 in on me with the welcome news that an egg had 

 been laid. An unwilling denizen of London, he had 

 again been bathing himself in our country air, though 

 experience had taught him that three o'clock is even 

 too early. We were very soon at the osier-bed, and 

 I at once recognised the egg as that of a Marsh 



