lped to clear the neighborhood of
such a suspicious character.

Where did the egg--if it was an egg--come from? The vireos and pewees
and gnats were still building, I reflected thankfully, though trembling
for their future; and fortunately the hangbird had young. Perhaps the
jay had found a nest that I could not discover.

After that, things went on quietly for several days. The gnats got
through with their building, and went off for a holiday until it should
be time to begin brooding. They flitted about the branches warbling, as
if having nothing special to do; dear little souls, at work as at play,
always together. One of them unexpectedly found himself near me one day;
but when he saw it was only I, whipped his tail and exclaimed "_Oh, it's
you'. I'm' not afraid._"

This peace and quietness, however, did not last. The gnats' house was
evidently haunted, and they did not like--blue--ghosts. One morning
when I got to the oak it was all in a hubbub, and the vireo was
scolding loudly at a blue jay. When the giant pitched into the brush the
wren-tit chattered, and I thought perhaps the jay was teaching him how
it feels to have a shoe pinch. A few moments later I was amazed to see a
gnat jab at the wall till it got a bill full of material and then fly
off to the brush with it! My little birds had moved! Evidently the
neighborhood was too exciting for them. More than ten days of hard
work--no one can tell how hard until after watching a gnatcatcher
build--had been spent in vain on this nest; and if, as suspected, this
was their second, how much more work did that mean? It was a marvel that
the birds could get courage to start in again, especially if they had
had two homes broken up already.

From my position at the big oak I could see that the gnats were carrying
the frame of the old house to a small oak in the brush. The wood pewee
had moved too, and to my surprise and pleasure I found it had begun its
nest on a branch under the gnats, so that both families could be watched
at the same time. I nearly got brushed off the saddle promenading
through the stiff chaparral to find a place where the nests could be
seen from the ground; but when at last successful, I too, like the rest
of the old oak's floating population, moved to pastures new. Hanging my
chair on the saddle, I made Billy carry it for me; then I buckled the
reins around the trunk of the oak and withdrew into the brush to watch
my birds. It was a cozy little no