oyed at every endearing word and look. It is
surprising that all this parade of plumage and tinkling of cymbals
should be gone through with and persisted in to please a creature so
coldly indifferent as she really seems to be.

I know of no other song-bird that expresses so much self-consciousness
and vanity, and comes so near being an ornithological coxcomb. The
redbird, the yellowbird, the indigo-bird, the oriole, the cardinal
grosbeak, and others, all birds of brilliant plumage and musical
ability, seem quite unconscious of self, and neither by tone nor act
challenge the admiration of the beholder.

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 nesting birds are
liable as few or no other birds do. Unless the mowers come along at an
earlier date than she has anticipated, that is, before July 1, 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 swiftly 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 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 I could command, till my
patience was exhauste