HIDDEN TREASURE 91 
I hid behind an apple tree and waited nearly half 
an hour. At last from the woods sounded a low 
“Cluck, cluck, cluck,” and instantly nine little par- 
tridge chicks, one by one, started up from the most 
impossible hiding-places. It was like watching a 
resurrection. Some came from under leaves, others 
out of clumps of grass, and two or three rose from 
the almost bare ground, where they had lain in per- 
fect concealment. Falling into single file, they hur- 
ried like little ghosts into the thicket, and the last I 
heard of that little family was a few soft and very 
satisfied clucks from the hidden mother bird. 
During that golden week of treasure-hunting I 
found a number of common nests which, although 
everyday affairs to an experienced ornithologist, 
were then, as they are now, a source of never-ending 
interest. There was the robin’s nest partly made of 
wool, which I found in a thorn-bush in the sheep- 
pasture, with its four long, sky-blue eggs. Over in 
the woods, just back of the deserted house where 
Nat Bunker, the Indian, used to weave wonderful 
baskets out of maiden-hair stems, I found the nest 
of a wood thrush in a witch-hazel about seven feet 
from the ground, by the simple process of running 
my head against the bush while going through the 
thick undergrowth. This accident bunted the mo- 
ther thrush off the nest; and pulling the bush down, 
I peered in and saw three light-blue eggs. 
If I had taken these eggs, as some bird’s-nesters 
do, I never should have had the experience of actually 
seeing a little wood thrush come into the world. It 
