seized it and carried it back. She placed it in
position as before, stood upon it again for a moment, and then flew
away. Again the paper left the branch, and sailed away slowly to the
ground. The bird seized it again, jerking it about rather spitefully, I
thought; she turned it round two or three times, then labored back to
the branch with it, upon which she shifted it about as if to hit upon
some position in which it would lie more securely. This time she sat
down upon it for a moment, and then went away, doubtless with the
thought in her head that she would bring something to hold it down. The
perverse paper followed her in a few seconds. She seized it again, and
hustled it about more than before. As she rose with it toward the nest,
it in some way impeded her flight, and she was compelled to return to
the ground with it. But she kept her temper remarkably well. She turned
the paper over and took it up in her beak several times before she was
satisfied with her hold, and then carried it back to the branch, where,
however, it would not stay. I saw her make six trials of it, when I was
called away. I think she finally abandoned the restless fragment,
probably a scrap that held some "breezy" piece of writing, for later in
the season I examined the nest and found no paper in it.

How completely the life of a bird revolves about its nest, its home! In
the case of the wood thrush, its life and joy seem to mount higher and
higher as the nest prospers. The male becomes a fountain of melody; his
happiness waxes day by day; he makes little triumphal tours about the
neighborhood, and pours out his pride and gladness in the ears of all.
How sweet, how well-bred, is his demonstration! But let any accident
befall that precious nest, and what a sudden silence falls upon him!
Last summer a pair of wood thrushes built their nest within a few rods
of my house, and when the enterprise was fairly launched and the mother
bird was sitting upon her four blue eggs, the male was in the height of
his song. How he poured forth his rich melody, never in the immediate
vicinity of the nest, but always within easy hearing distance! Every
morning, as promptly as the morning came, between five and six, he would
sing for half an hour from the top of a locust-tree that shaded my
roof. I came to expect him as much as I expected my breakfast, and I was
not disappointed till one morning I seemed to miss something. What was
it? Oh, the thrush had not sung