serted, the female having
probably laid a single egg, which the squirrel had devoured.

If I were a bird, in building my nest I should follow the example of the
bobolink, placing it in the midst of a broad meadow, where there was no
spear of grass, or flower or growth unlike another to mark its site. I
judge that the bobolink escapes the dangers to which I have adverted
as few or no other birds do. Unless the mowers come along at an earlier
date than she has anticipated, that is, before July lst, or a skunk goes
nosing through the grass, which is unusual, she is as safe as bird well
can be in the great open of nature. She selects the most monotonous and
uniform place she can find amid the daisies or the timothy and clover,
and places her simple structure upon the ground in the midst of it.
There is no concealment, except as the great conceals the little, as
the desert conceals the pebble, as the myriad conceals the unit. You
may find the nest once, if your course chances to lead you across it
and your eye is quick enough to note the silent brown bird as she darts
quickly away; but step three paces in the wrong direction, and your
search will probably be fruitless. My friend and I found a nest by
accident one day, and then lost it again one minute afterward. I moved
away a few yards to be sure of the mother-bird, charging my friend not
to stir from his tracks. When I returned, he had moved two paces, he
said (he had really moved four), and we spent a half hour stooping
over the daisies and the buttercups, looking for the lost clew. We
grew desperate, and fairly felt the ground all over with our hands, but
without avail. I marked the spot with a bush, and came the next day, and
with the bush as a centre, moved about it in slowly increasing circles,
covering, I thought, nearly every inch of ground with my feet, and
laying hold of it with all the visual power that I could command, till
my patience was exhausted, and I gave up, baffled. I began to doubt
the ability of the parent birds themselves to find it, and so secreted
myself and watched. After much delay, the male bird appeared with food
in his beak, and satisfying himself that the coast was clear, dropped
into the grass which I had trodden down in my search. Fastening my eye
upon a particular meadow-lily, I walked straight to the spot, bent down,
and gazed long and intently into the grass. Finally my eye separated the
nest and its young from its surroundings. My foot ha