684. 
but by a casual glance of the eye, while 
thinking of other matters. The bird was just 
settling upon it as I looked up from my book 
and caught her in the act. The nest was 
built near the end of a long, knotty, horizontal 
branch of an apple-tree, but effectually hidden 
by the grouping of the leaves; it had three 
eggs, one of which proved to be barren. The 
two young birds grew apace, and were out of 
the nest early in the second week; but some- 
thing caught one of them the first night. The 
other probably grew to maturity, as it disap- 
peared from the vicinity with its parents after 
some days. 
The blue-back’s nest was scarcely a foot 
from the ground, in a little bush situated in a 
low, dense wood of hemlock and beech and 
maple,—a deep, massive, elaborate structure, 
in which the sitting bird sank till her beak 
and tail alone were visible above the brim. 
It was a misty, chilly day when I chanced to 
find the nest, and the mother-bird knew in- 
stinctively that it was not prudent to leave 
her four half incubated eggs uncovered and 
exposed for a moment. When I sat down 
near the nest she grew very uneasy, and after 
trying in vain to decoy me away by suddenly 
dropping from the branches and dragging her- 
self over the ground as if mortally wounded, 
she approached and timidly and half doubt- 
ingly covered her eggs within two yards of 
where I sat. I disturbed her several times, to 
note her ways. There came to be something 
almost appealing in her looks and manner, 
and she would keep her place on her precious 
eggs till my outstretched hand was within a 
few feet of her. Finally, I covered the cavity 
of the nest with a dry leaf. This she did not 
remove with her beak, but thrust her head 
deftly beneath it and shook it off upon the 
ground. Many of her sympathizing neighbors, 
attracted by her alarm-note, came and had a 
peep at the intruder and then flew away, but 
the male bird did not appear upon the scene. 
The final history of this nest I am unable to 
‘give, as I did not again visit it till late in the 
season, when, of course, it was empty. 
Years pass without my finding a brown- 
thrasher’s nest ; it is not a nest you are likely 
to stumble upon in your walk; it is hidden 
as a miser hides his gold and watched as 
jealously. The male pours out his rich and 
triumphant song from the tallest tree he can 
find, and fairly challenges you to come and 
look for his treasures in his vicinity. But you 
will not find them if you go. The nest is 
somewhere on the outer circle of his song; 
he is never so imprudent as to take up his 
stand very near it. The ‘one I found the past 
season was thirty or forty rods from the point 
where the male was wont to indulge in his 
THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS. 
brilliant recitative. It was in an open field 
under a low ground-juniper. My dog dis- 
turbed the sitting bird as I was passing near. 
‘The nest could be seen only by lifting up and 
parting away the branches. All the arts of 
concealment had been carefully studied. It 
was the last place you would think of look- 
ing, and, if you did look, nothing was visible 
but the dense green circle of the low-spread- 
ing juniper. When you approached, the bird 
would keep her place till you had begun to 
stir the branches, when she would start out, 
and, just skimming the ground, make a bright 
brown line to the near fence and bushes. I con- 
fidently expected that this nest would escape 
molestation, but it did not. Its discovery by 
myself and dog probably opened the door of 
ill luck, for one day, not long afterward, when 
I peeped in upon it, it was empty. The proud 
song of the male had ceased from his accus- 
tomed tree, and the pair were seen no more 
in that vicinity. 
The phcebe bird is a wise architect, and 
perhaps enjoys as great an immunity from 
danger, both in its person and its nest, as 
any other bird. Its modest ashen-gray suit is 
the color of the rocks where it builds, and the 
moss of which it makes such free use gives 
to its nest the look of a natural growth or ac- 
cretion. But when it comes into the barn or 
under the shed to build, as it so frequently 
does, the moss is rather out of place. Doubt- 
less in time the bird will take the hint, and, 
when she builds in such places, will leave the 
moss out. I noted but two nests the past sea- 
son: one in a barn failed of issue, on account 
of the rats, I suspect, though the little owl 
may have been the depredator ; the other, in 
the woods, sent forth three young. This lat- 
ter nest was most charmingly and ingeniously 
placed. I discovered it while in quest of pond- 
lilies in a long, deep, level stretch of water in 
the woods. A large tree had blown over at 
the edge of the water, and its dense mass of 
upturned roots, with the black, peaty soil fill- 
ing the interstices, was like the fragment of a 
wall several feet high, rising from the edge of 
the languid current. In aniche in this earthy 
wall, and visible and accessible only from the 
water, a phoebe had built her nest and reared 
her brood. I paddled my boat up and came 
alongside ready to take the family aboard. 
The young, nearly ready to fly, were quite 
undisturbed by my presence, having proba- 
bly been assured that no danger need be ap- 
prehended from that side. It was not a likely 
place for minks, or they would not have been 
so secure. 
I noted but one nest of the wood pewee, 
and that, too, like so many other nests, failed 
of issue. It was saddled upon a small dry 
