POKING AROUND FOR BIRDS' NESTS 145 



and a long green valley dropping away below, per- 

 haps to the distant white spire of the village church, 

 with patches here and there of raspberry and blue- 

 berry and huckleberry bushes, and cow-paths amid 



The Blackbirds make lively, the air over the sedgy borders of 

 streams and -ponds 



the fragrant sweet-fern, with thistle tops and steeple- 

 bush to prick the field with pink, with the tinkle of 

 a distant cow-bell — and, as the sun is sinking in the 

 west, the fairy flutes of the white-throated sparrows! 

 It is on the edges of such pastures that the white- 

 throats (or Peabody birds) build their nests, from, 

 the Adirondack and White Mountains northward. 

 I think they infrequently nest farther south. In 



