142 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
and there he watches over his household, all 
through the leafy June, perched often upon 
the airy cradle edge, and swaying with it in the 
summer wind. And from this deep nest, after 
the pretty eggs are hatched, will he and his 
mate extract every fragment of the shell, leav- 
ing it, like all other nests, save those of birds 
of prey, clean and pure, when the young are 
flown. This they do chiefly from an instinct 
of delicacy, since wood-birds are not wont to 
use the same nest a second time, even if they 
rear several broods in a season. 
The subdued tints and notes which almost 
always mark the female sex, among birds, — 
unlike insects and human beings, where the 
female is often more showy than the male, — 
seem designed to secure their safety while 
sitting on the nest, while the brighter colors 
and louder song of the male enable his domes- 
tic circle to detect his whereabouts more easily. 
It is commonly noticed, in the same way, that 
ground-birds have more neutral tints than those 
which build out of reach. With the aid of 
these advantages, it is astonishing how well 
these roving creatures keep their secrets, and 
what sharp eyes are needed to spy out their 
habitations, — while it always seems as if the 
empty last year’s nests were very plenty. Some, 
indeed, are very elaborately concealed, as of the 
