BIRD’S-NESTING 117 
saw in that marsh. As my vision was limited to a 
range of about two feet, I did not see many more 
birds personally. In spite of my blinded condition, 
I did discover, however, another prothonotary’s 
nest. I had taken hold of a rotten willow-stub while 
pushing the boat through a thicket. It broke in my 
hand, and there, in an exposed downy woodpecker’s 
hole, was a newly made nest of green moss, with a 
few twigs and bark-strips on top, but no eggs. The 
fourth and last nest was found by the Banker, again 
in a downy’s hole. He saw something move and 
thought it was a mouse or chickadee. Finally a 
long bill came out of the hole and then a head. It 
was a hen prothonotary building her nest. She had 
the hole already filled with moss, and was bringing 
in grass, and would whirl around and around inside, 
modeling the nest carefully. Within, she had lined it 
with grass, just as a chipping sparrow’s nest is lined 
with hair. 
This was the last nest of the day. The Banker 
suggested that we stay over another night, but I 
felt that home was the best place for a blind man. 
My last memory of the golden prothonotary was 
hearing him call, ‘Tweet, tweet, tweet”? from the 
willows, as we started back to the mill. 
The last of my nesting-trips was on July 7th. The 
Artist in some mysterious way had learned the secret 
of Tern Island, one of the few places on the New 
Jersey coast where the Wilson tern still nests. In a 
rickety old power-boat— probably it was the first one 
ever built—we traveled haltingly through the most 
