er
circle of his song; he is never so imprudent as to take up his stand
very near it. The artists who draw those cozy little pictures of a
brooding mother bird, with the male perched but a yard away in full
song, do not copy from nature. The thrasher's nest I found was thirty or
forty rods from the point where the male was wont to indulge in his
brilliant recitative. It was in an open field under a low
ground-juniper. My dog disturbed 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 looking in, and, if you did look, nothing was
visible but the dense green circle of the low-spreading 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 confidently
expected that this nest would escape molestation, but it did not. Its
discovery by myself and dog probably opened the door for ill luck, as
one day, not long afterward, when I peeped in upon it, it was empty. The
proud song of the male had ceased from his accustomed tree, and the
pair were seen no more in that vicinity.

After a pair of nesting birds have been broken up once or twice during
the season, they become almost desperate, and will make great efforts to
outwit their enemies. A pair of brown thrashers built their nest in a
pasture-field under a low, scrubby apple-tree which the cattle had
browsed down till it spread a thick, wide mass of thorny twigs only a
few inches above the ground. Some blackberry briers had also grown
there, so that the screen was perfect. My dog first started the bird, as
I was passing near. By stooping low and peering intently, I could make
out the nest and eggs. Two or three times a week, as I passed by, I
would pause to see how the nest was prospering. The mother bird would
keep her place, her yellow eyes never blinking. One morning, as I looked
into her tent, I found the nest empty. Some night-prowler, probably a
skunk or a fox, or maybe a black snake or a red squirrel by day, had
plundered it. It would seem as if it was too well screened; it was in
such a spot as any depredator would be apt to explore. "Surely," he
would say, "this is a likely place for a nest." The birds then moved
over the hill a hundred rods or more, much