Yesterday afternoon I found a Blue Jay sitting on her 
nest which was placed in a fork in the main trunk of a white 
oak ten or twelve inches in diameter just below the fork, 
which was about fifteen feet above the ground® The tree 
stands by the side of the path which leads from the old to 
the new cabin. I had seen both the Jays together in its top 
earlier in the day surrounded by a number of excited and irate 
little birds. I begin to believe that there is some truth 
in the statement (made, originally, by I know not whom) that 
predacious animals seek their victims at some distance from 
their own homes. If it be not so in the cg.se of the Jays, 
at least, it is hard to understand why this pair of birds 
have spared a Robin’s nest in the white pine which grows 
against the front of our wood-shed and a Red-eyed Vireo’s 
nest suspended among the terminal twigs of a drooping branch 
of another small pine, directly over the path about thirty 
feet beyond the wood-shed and scarce fifty feet from Gilbert’s 
cabin. 
The history of the Robin's nest is interesting. 
Gilbert found it on the morning (at about 9 o’clock) of 
June 1st,when it was completed, but empty. When I looked 
into it at about 5 P. M. the same day it held one egg. It 
was next examined (by Gilbert) on the 5th, when there were 
four eggs, the full set. At about noon of the 15th, Gilbert 
put his hand in the nest and felt all four eggs. At 7 A. M. 
