4 
BULLETIN OF THE NUTTALL 
the harvest-time for the oologist, and rarities were in order. But 
how brief it all was ! A dozen or so days only, and the young 
were hatched out ; the woods swarmed with mosquitoes, black flies, 
and other bloodthirsty insects, and “ the season ” was at an end. 
Nothing remained but to pack up the accumulated treasures, and get 
them safely home for future comparison and investigation. 
Before taking out our cabinet specimens, however, and diving 
into the dry details of description, let us return to the woods, and 
contemplate for a few moments the undisturbed nest. We shall be 
most likely to find one, along this old wood-road, for the removal of 
the taller trees has let in the sunlight a little, and birds love such 
places. 
You will rarely find the interior of a forest so well peopled as 
the edges and little openings, and the birds are not singular in this 
respect. Men always choose the shores of rivers, ponds, or the sea, 
for their first settlements in a new country, and I fancy it is not 
entirely from considerations of utility, but partly because they 
crave an adjacent breathing-space, where the sun and wind may 
have fiiir sweep. There are some exceptions to the rule among the 
birds, of course, there being some morbidly disposed individuals 
that can find no place too dark or too secluded. 
As we follo\y the old wood-path, you shall take one side while I 
make good the other. These little clumps of fir and spruce shrubs are 
the likely places, and, judging from the numbers of Black-and-Yellow 
Warblers that I hear singing, our chances are good, but you must 
remember that not above one male in three or four of this species ' 
is blessed with a mate, so do not let your hopes rise too high. They 
are a gay lot of bachelors, though, are they not 1 chasing one another 
through the branches, more in sport than anger apparently, and ut- 
tering their queer, emphatic little songs on all sides. She knew she 
was right ; yes, she hieiv she ivas right, they seem to say ; but what all 
this means I never could imagine. Some idle gossip of theirs prob- 
ably, which it will not profit us to inquire into. Ha ! I have it, 
even so soon. I thought yon fellow singing so gayly in the fallen 
tree-top had more the air of a Benedict than any we have pre- 
viously seen, and here, almost under my hand, sits his modest 
little wife on her nest. Be careful how you shake that branch, for 
I would have you take a good long look ere we disturb her. See how 
her dark little eye glistens, and note the rapid pulsating motion of 
her back. Underneath those piifled-up feathers a poor little heart 
