hree minutes, it was so unusual that I
recorded it. He worked spasmodically, however. One day he came seventeen
times in one hour, but during the next half hour came only five times.
The birds seemed to divide their mornings into quite regular periods.
When I awoke at half past five I would hear them at the pepper-trees
breakfasting; and some of them were generally there as late as eight
o'clock. From eight to ten they worked with a will, though the visits
usually fell off after half past nine. It was when working in this more
deliberate way that the male would go to his perch on an adjoining tree
and preen himself, catch flies, or sing between his visits. Once he sat
on the limb in front of the nest for nearly ten minutes. By ten o'clock
I found that I might as well go to watch other birds, as little would be
going on with the phainopeplas; and they often flew off for a lunch of
peppers.

Just as the island nest was about done--it was destroyed! I found it on
the ground under the tree. For a time I felt as if no nests could come
to anything; the number that had been destroyed during the season was
disheartening. It seemed as though I no sooner got interested in a
little family than its home was broken up. Sometimes I wondered how a
bird ever had courage to start a nest.

But though it was hard to reconcile myself to the destruction of the
phainopeplas' nest, I found others later. Altogether, I saw three pairs
of birds building, and in each case the male was doing most of the work.
Two of the nests I watched closely, watch and note-book in hand, in
order to determine the exact proportion of work done by each bird. One
nest was watched two hours and a half, during a period of five days, in
which time the male went to the nest twenty-seven times, the female,
only three. The other nest was watched seven hours and thirty-five
minutes, during a period of ten days, in which time the male was at the
nest fifty-seven times; the female, only eight. Taking the total for the
two nests: in ten hours and five minutes the male went to the nest
eighty-four times; the female, eleven. That is to say, the females made
only thirteen per cent of the visits. In reality, although they went to
the nest eleven times, the ratio of work might safely be reduced still
further; for in watching them I was convinced that, as a rule, they came
to the nest, not to build, but to inspect the building done by their
mates. Indeed, at one nest, I saw nothi