Lake George 



the whippoorwill is really as innocent and light- 

 hearted as any wren or purple finch. 



A novel experience with a pair of phoebes, 

 this summer, put me into possession of a beauti- 

 ful nest and a full set of eggs, without robbery, 

 and without the bird's abandonment of the nest. 

 On the piazza of a neighboring house several 

 pairs of birds were nesting; and my humble 

 stores of learning were appealed to, for deter- 

 mining the species. As the uninitiated observ- 

 er's method of describing a bird is marvellously 

 vague, and commonly leaves the ornithologist 

 quite as much in the dark as ever — as in the 

 case of an enthusiastic student who told me of 

 an unfamiliar bird he saw, with a double tail, 

 by which I afterward inferred he meant 2l forked 

 tail — I could only say that the indefinite data 

 furnished would cover a multitude of species, 

 and be equally applicable to swallows, catbirds, 

 and other small varieties of dark complexion. 

 This only illustrates how indistinct one's per- 

 ception of an object usually is, until he has 

 learned the art of clear discernment. Visiting 

 the house, I found, on the beam under the 

 piazza eaves, three nests of the same kind, at in- 

 tervals of about three feet from each other, and 

 proving to be phoebes's nests. One contained 



22g 



