ng
its calls. My neighbor had told me he had heard one call over two
hundred times without a break, which seemed to me a big story. But I
have a much bigger one to tell. This bird actually laid upon the back of
poor Will one thousand and eighty-eight blows, with only a barely
perceptible pause here and there, as if to catch its breath. Then it
stopped about half a minute and began again, uttering this time three
hundred and ninety calls, when it paused, flew a little farther away,
took up the tale once more, and continued till I fell asleep.

By day the whip-poor-will apparently sits motionless upon the ground. A
few times in my walks through the woods I have started one up from
almost under my feet. On such occasions the bird's movements suggest
those of a bat; its wings make no noise, and it wavers about in an
uncertain manner, and quickly drops to the ground again. One June day we
flushed an old one with her two young, but there was no indecision or
hesitation in the manner of the mother bird this time. The young were
more than half fledged, and they scampered away a few yards and
suddenly squatted upon the ground, where their assimilative coloring
rendered them almost invisible. Then the anxious parent put forth all
her arts to absorb our attention and lure us away from her offspring.
She flitted before us from side to side, with spread wings and tail, now
falling upon the ground, where she would remain a moment as if quite
disabled, then perching upon an old stump or low branch with drooping,
quivering wings, and imploring us by every gesture to take her and spare
her young. My companion had his camera with him, but the bird would not
remain long enough in one position for him to get her picture.

THE BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER

A SEARCH FOR A RARE NEST

I had set out in hopes of finding a rare nest,--the nest of the
black-throated blue-backed warbler, which, it seemed, with one or two
others, was still wanting to make the history of our warblers complete.
The woods were extensive, and full of deep, dark tangles, and looking
for any particular nest seemed about as hopeless a task as searching for
a needle in a haystack, as the old saying is. Where to begin, and how?
But the principle is the same as in looking for a hen's nest,--first
find your bird, then watch its movements.

The bird is in these woods, for I have seen him scores of times, but
whether he builds high or low, on the ground or in the tre