The Tricolored Redwing 



loth to yield. The bottom is deliciously oozy (if you like it so, but I 

 prefer to keep my shoes on). The serried ranks of cattails stand close, so 

 close that one must use a large knife to get about ; and they stand so high 

 above that one sees no horizon, 

 and only guesses what may be 

 in the sky. And everywhere 

 there are nests, baskets of coiled 

 grasses, lashed stoutly to the 

 reeds. The nests, I say, are 

 everywhere, now at middle levels, 

 two or three feet above the 

 water, where one may peep into 

 them, now overhead where we 

 must thrust in exploratory fin- 

 gers, now hung perilously close 

 to the water where a change in 

 level may overwhelm them. 

 Now and again they crowd each 

 other, when two or three birds 

 select the same stems. Here 

 are two nests side by side, and 

 here one above another. Here 

 a bird has lashed her founda- 

 tions too high, and the top will 

 not go on because of a neighbor's 

 foundation. No matter — try 

 again. Never in the American 

 swamps will another species of 

 bird furnish such generous mat- 

 ter for the inquisitive bird- 

 nester. Here, by planting one 

 foot for base and turning about 

 freely, I am able to see into six- 

 teen nests, all with eggs. Here, 

 again, I touch twenty-six nests 

 from one station, but I cannot 

 see whether they are all occupied . 

 In the interests of compara- 

 tive oology, the writer has ex- 

 amined some 3500 nests of this Blackbird in the course of several seasons, 

 but chiefly in that of 1916. The study resulted not only in a handsome and 



Photo by the A ulhor 



A JAPANESQUE 



100 



