UNUSUAL EXPERIENCES AFIELD 75 



nest material. I think tliat the female of this pair 

 was a young bird. In the plethora of material 

 and the exuberance of her first attempt, she built 

 a nest twice the size of any of her kind I had 

 examined in roadside, meadow, or thicket bushes, 

 using copiously the dry last year's honeysuckle 

 leaves, which she picked up on the ground under 

 the bush. The size and peculiarity of this nest 

 was one thing I wish to record. The other is the 

 fact that the male appeared to be blind in one eye. 

 Every forenoon about nine o'clock he entered the 

 nest and brooded for an hour or more while his 

 mate went to find her breakfast, bathe, and exer- 

 cise. In setting up a camera before the nest in an 

 attempt to secure such a rare picture as that of 

 a male bird brooding, I noticed that he had flown 

 against a thorn or some sharp projection, which 

 had penetrated the inner corner of his right eye 

 so that the ball was somewhat discoloured and 

 partially flooded, while a small red growth had 

 formed in each corner. I thought that he was a 

 bird several years of age, as his plumage was 

 so fully matured through a number of moultings 

 that when he brooded with the morning sun falling 

 directly upon him, the top of his head and the 

 feathers on the back of his neck were perfectly 

 exquisite pale, greenish blue, shining like a highly 

 polished gem of turquoise. I worked with this 

 bird early in my outdoor experience, trying re- 

 peatedly to make him enter the nest and brood with 



