Mar., 1904 I 
THE CONDOR 
33 
and look into the nest. When I first parted the branches and looked into the 
feather- lined cup, two small nestlings stretched their skinny necks and opened 
their mouths with unmistakable signs of hunger. 
The moment the mother returned and found me at the nest she was scared al- 
most out of her senses. She fell from the top of the tree in a fluttering fit. She 
caught quivering on the limb a foot from my hand. But unable, to hold on, she 
slipped through the branches and clutched my shoe. I never saw such an exag- 
gerated case of the chills. I stooped to see what ailed her. She wavered like an 
autumn leaf to the ground. I leaped down, but she had limped under a bush and 
suddenly got well. Of course I knew she was tricking me! But I never saw 
higher skill in a feathered artkst. 
The next day my heart was hardened against all her alluring wiles and croco- 
dile tears. She played her best, but the minute she failed to win, I got a furious 
berating. It was no begging note now. She perched over my head and called me 
every name in the warbler vocabulary. When she saw I was shoving the one- 
MALE YELLOW-THROAT FEEDING YOUNG 
eyed monster right at her children, she screamed “Fly! Fly! for your lives.” Both 
the scanty feathered, bob-tailed youngsters jumped blindly out of the nest into the 
bushes below. She outdid all previous performances. But not to be fooled, I kept 
an eye on one nestling and soon replaced him in the nest where he belonged. I 
looked for half an hour and then found the second dumpy little fellow sitting right 
before my eyes. Nature always hides such creatures from me by an almost invis- 
ible veil of mystery. I’ve seen a flock of half a dozen grouse flutter up into a fir 
and disappear to my eyes as completely as a cloud of fog before the sun. 
It was easy enough to get pictures of the nest and young, but a very different 
matter to get the parents within shot of the camera. After fre(|uent visits, how- 
ever, the gray mother seemed to recognize the camera as harmless. This took 
time and an unlimited amount of patience, but it gave the best opportunities of 
studying the bird’s habits. 
The first day I really met the gray gentleman face to face was when I was 
trying to get a photograph of the mother as she came home to feed. She had 
