104 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
like turquoises from a nest directly on the ground, 
lined neatly with red-brown pine-needles and with 
dry dark green moss on the outside, the hall-mark of 
the nest of the hermit thrush. In front of it was a 
cushion of partridge-berry vines, with their green 
leaves and red berries, while blueberry fronds, cov- 
ered with tender green leaves, arched over the nest, 
and sprays of ground-pine sheltered its sides. It was 
a fitting home for the beautiful twilight singer. The 
eggs of a hermit thrush actually seem to gleam from 
the ground, unlike the mottled and speckled and 
clouded eggs of most ground-nesters. 
As the sun came up, the whole mountain-side rang 
with bird-songs. There was the abrupt strain of the 
magnolia warbler, who to my ears says, ‘‘ Wheedle, 
wheedle, whee-chee.”” The black-and-white warbler 
sang like a tiny, creaking wheel, as he ran up and 
down tree-trunks. Down in the meadows beyond 
the lake, the long-tailed brown thrasher said, “Hello, 
hello! Come over here, come over here. There he 
goes, there he goes. Whoa, whoa, ha-ha, ha-ha.”’ 
If you do not believe my reading of his song, listen 
the next time one sings to you, and see if these are 
not his exact words. Overhead we often heard the 
squeal of the red-shouldered hawk, sounding almost 
like the cry of the blue jay. Then there was the loud 
yet gentle warble of the purple finch; and once we 
saw a beautiful rose-red male and his gray-brown 
wife feeding each other on a limb like a pair of love- 
birds. Another song which was interesting to me, 
because almost new, was that of the solitary or blue- 
