WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 12'J 



lings. On this concave mattress, in rich contrast 

 to the brown nesting stuff, rest three glossy sky- 

 blue ovals, that enclose the nascent songs. How 

 beautiful are the eggs of all these thrushes ! So 

 symmetricar and perfectly enameled and painted 

 with the hue of sapphire ! What mysterious chem- 

 istry is at work within the viscera of these brown 

 earth-probing, worm-eating birds, that gives the 

 lime shells such a delicate azure tint ? 



While contemplating the jewels, the mother 

 bird lingers near, and occasionally utters her re- 

 proving, pleading chirp, as if she said: "Ar'n't 

 you ashamed, you bold-faced ogre, to look into my 

 door? But please don't rob me of my treasures." 

 So heeding her voice I leave her in peace, trusting 

 that another musical family may be born, to give 

 to the world additional melody and cheer. 



Here by the wooded bank, while gathering the 

 true and false Solomon's-seal, one having its green- 

 ish, bell-like flowers in nodding axillary clusters, 

 the other with white, small blossoms in terminal 

 racemes, I am startled by a rufiled grouse that has 

 risen with explosive sound from her place of con- 

 cealment, not ten feet away, and whirrs off to the 

 woods like a solid shot. She is seen only for an 

 instant, so rapid is her flight, and appears as if a 



