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IDYLLS OF BIRD LIFE 
but this time I confidently hoped to find the nest safe when I 
came back. Then I rejoined the bunch, and had to answer a 
thousand and one questions regarding my new feathered 
friends. 
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We continued picking the small blue beauties and were 
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so absorbed in our task that we did not think of the hour until 
the slanting rays of the sun lighting up the edge of the meadow 
and tinting the trees in the distance with a dull gold, warned us 
that it was time “to fold up our tents like the Arabs, and steal 
away.” I reached home that night just as soft evening gently 
and slowly stole over the world, and silently, one by one, the 
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stars began dotting the heavens. 
I did not visit the quail nest until about two weeks after * 
my discovery. As it takes about twenty-four davs, however, to 
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hatch a brood, both birds assisting in the incubation, I decided 
to make another journey to the place. I finally found the op- 
■ ■ • . 
portunity. When I reached their home, the mother bird was 
silently brooding, and her eggs must have quickened, as she was 
not inclined to flight as is usually the case, and so I did not dis- 
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turb her. To show that I was her friend I distributed some 
f Of . , i——"* \ 1 I I pk''‘llfT / I 
crumbs about the nest. After this, every two days I visited 
them, and when I came, sometimes the male, and sometimes the 
