THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS 75 



these birds build in a fork. But no nest could I 

 find. Indeed, how can one by searching find a 

 bird's nest? I overshot the mark; the nest was 

 much nearer me, almost under my very nose, and 

 I discovered it, not by searching, but by a casual 

 glance of the eye, while thinking of other matters. 

 The bird was just settling upon it as I looked up 

 from my book and caught her in the act. The nest 

 was built near the end of a long, knotty, horizontal 

 branch of an apple-tree, but efifectually hidden by 

 the grouping of the leaves; it had three eggs, one 

 of which proved to be barren. The two young 

 birds grew apace, and were out of the nest early in 

 the second week ; but something caught one of them 

 the first night. The other probably grew to matu- 

 rity, as it disappeared from the vicinity with its 

 parents after some days. 



The blue-back's nest was scarcely a foot from 

 the ground, in a little bush situated in a low, 

 dense wood of hemlock and beech and maple amid 

 the Catskills, — a deep, massive, elaborate struc- 

 ture, in which the sitting bird sank till her beak 

 and tail alone were visible above the brim. It was 

 a misty, chiUy day when I chanced to find the 

 nest, and the mother bird knew instinctively that 

 it was not prudent to leave her four half-incubated 

 eggs uncovered and exposed for a moment. When 

 I sat down near the nest, she grew very uneasy, 

 and, after trying in vain to decoy me away by sud- 

 denly dropping from the branches and dragging 

 herself over the ground as if mortally wounded, she 



