166 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
Just at sunset we waded back and stopped at the 
little arm of the swamp where we had first heard the 
bittern. Suddenly from the sedges came a scolding 
little song that sounded like “Chop, chip-chop, 
chp’p’p’p’,”’ and we caught the merest glimpse of a 
tiny bird with a tip-tilted tail and brown back whose 
undersides seemed yellowish. It was none other than 
the rare short-billed marsh wren, next to the smallest 
of our Eastern birds, only the hummingbird being 
tinier. Neither of us had ever seen this marsh wren 
before, and we tramped back three long miles to 
town with a new bird, a new nest, and a new note 
to our credit in our out-of-doors account. 
That night over a good dinner we were joined by 
the other two of our Four who for many happy years 
have hunted together. Just at dawn the next day, 
we all stole out of the sleeping inn and along the 
silent village streets, sweet with the scent of lilacs. 
Right in front of the town hall we found the first 
nest of the day. Cunningly hidden in the crotch 
of a sugar maple, just over the heads of hundreds 
of unseeing passers-by, a robin had brooded day by 
day over four eggs whose heavenly blue made a jewel- 
casket of her mud nest. I hope that the brave 
silent bird raised her babies and sent them out to 
add to the world’s store of music and beauty. 
Beyond the village we dragged a meadow. A long 
cord was tied to the ankles of two of us, and each 
walked away from the other until it was taut and then 
marched slowly through the fields. The moving line 
just swished the top of the long grass and flushed 
