BIRD’S-NESTING 101 
with but little money and no friends. Moreover, her 
doctor advised her that she had only a year at most 
to live. One day she found the nest of a prairie 
warbler, that little jewel-casket lined with fern-wool. 
It held four eggs like pink-flecked pearls. The very 
next day she bought a bird-book, and forgot all 
about herself, and spent the happiest months of her 
life hunting nests. At the end of a year in the open, 
she notified her indignant physician that she had 
become too much interested in her hobby to confirm 
his diagnosis. To-day she supports herself happily 
by writing about what she sees and hears among 
the wild-folk. 
The moral of all this is, go bird’s-nesting. This 
past summer, practising what I preach, I spent all 
my spare holidays in May, June, and July hunting 
rare nests. Let me say in preface that I collect only 
with a note-book and a camera. Personally, I prefer 
to have memories and notes and pictures of my 
bird’s-nests rather than cabinets full of pierced and 
empty eggs; for I believe that a human who visits 
his brethren of the air as their friend will find out 
more about them than he who follows them about 
like a weasel, only to rob their nests. 
The first of my bird-holidays was on May 20th. 
Four of us were to meet at Mount Pocono, the high- 
est mountain in Pennsylvania, on a hunt for the rare 
nest of that tiny bird, the golden-crowned kinglet. 
Late that evening we reached the camp near the 
top of the mountain, where we were to make our 
headquarters. Up there the weather had harked 
