82 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



and places her simple structure upon the ground in 

 the midst of it. There is no concealment, except 

 as the great conceals the little, as the desert con- 

 ceals the pehhle, as the myriad conceals the unit. 

 Ton may find the nest once, if your course chances 

 to lead you across it, and your eye is quick enough 

 to note the silent brown bird as she darts swiftly 

 away ; but step three paces in the wrong direction, 

 and your search will probably be fruitless. My 

 friend and I found a nest by accident one day, and 

 then lost it again one minute afterward. I moved 

 away a few yards to be sure of the mother bird, 

 charging my friend not to stir from his tracks. 

 When I returned, he had moved two paces, he said, 

 (he had really moved four), and we spent a half 

 hour stooping over the daisies and the buttercups, 

 looking for the lost clew. We grew desperate, and 

 fairly felt the ground over with our hands, but 

 without avail. I marked the spot with a bush, 

 and came the next day, and, with the bush as a 

 centre, moved about it in slowly increasing circles, 

 covering, I thought, nearly every inch of ground 

 with my feet, and laying hold of it with all the 

 visual power I could command, till my patience 

 was exhausted, and I gave up, baffled. I began to 

 doubt the ability of the parent birds themselves to 

 find it, and so secreted myself and watched. After 

 much delay, the male bird appeared with food in 

 his beak, and, satisfying himself that the coast was 

 clear, dropped into the grass which I had trodden 

 down in my search. Fastening my eye upon a 



