228 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
scattered hidden places was in itself a training to 
the mind, and no bad substitute for the lessons 
from books which boys are usually made to learn. 
On going again to a spot where I had discovered 
a nest, I always approached it with a feeling of 
pleased expectation mixed with anxiety ; for how 
often, after an interval of a day or two, would 
I find that some other nest-seeker, with huno^er for 
a motive, an opossum or carrion-hawk perhaps, had 
been before me, and had made a meal of the 
speckled eggs or callow young ! In such a case 
a very keenly felt regret was experienced ; but if 
the nest was found safe, and the parent bird 
perhaps seen on it, regarding my cautious approach 
with bright startled eyes, then the pleasure was 
almost as great as when the deftly wrought wind- 
rocked cradle was first discovered. 
During these nest-hunting days I climbed as 
high, and plunged as deeply into rushy streams 
and miry marshes, and got as many falls and 
bruises as the most ambitious birds'-nester could 
wish for, and in that way all the advantages 
derivable from this natural pastime were enjoyed, 
and the birds were none the worse. 
Did I, then, never collect eggs ? Yes, at a later 
period I became an enthusiastic collector; but it 
was my custom, as it is of so many boys in rural 
England, to take only one egg from a nest contain- 
