architect has knocked off to-day, and we must come again, or continue
our search.

Despairing of finding either of the nests of the two males, we pushed on
through the woods to try our luck elsewhere. Before long, just as we
were about to plunge down a hill into a dense, swampy part of the woods,
we discovered a pair of the birds we were in quest of. They had food in
their beaks, and, as we paused, showed great signs of alarm, indicating
that the nest was in the immediate vicinity. This was enough. We would
pause here and find this nest, anyhow. To make a sure thing of it, we
determined to watch the parent birds till we had wrung from them their
secret. So we doggedly crouched down and watched them, and they watched
us. It was diamond cut diamond. But as we felt constrained in our
movements, desiring, if possible, to keep so quiet that the birds would,
after a while, see in us only two harmless stumps or prostrate logs, we
had much the worst of it. The mosquitoes were quite taken with our
quiet, and knew us from logs and stumps in a moment. Neither were the
birds deceived, not even when we tried the Indian's tactics, and plumed
ourselves with green branches. Ah, the suspicious creatures, how they
watched us with the food in their beaks, abstaining for one whole hour
from ministering to that precious charge which otherwise would have been
visited every few moments! Quite near us they would come at times,
between us and the nest, eying us so sharply. Then they would move off,
and apparently try to forget our presence. Was it to deceive us, or to
persuade himself and his mate that there was no serious cause for alarm,
that the male would now and then strike up in full song and move off to
some distance through the trees? But the mother bird did not allow
herself to lose sight of us at all, and both birds, after carrying the
food in their beaks a long time, would swallow it themselves. Then they
would obtain another morsel and apparently approach very near the nest,
when their caution or prudence would come to their aid, and they would
swallow the food and hasten away. I thought the young birds would cry
out, but not a syllable from them. Yet this was, no doubt, what kept the
parent birds away from the nest. The clamor the young would have set up
on the approach of the old with food would have exposed everything.

After a time I felt sure I knew within a few feet where the nest was
concealed. Indeed, I thought I knew the