many birds, if the observer is very quiet and tactful. For
a long time I stood in the blazing sun with my eyes bent on the little
impostor. Back and forth, hither and yon, she flew, now descending to
the ground and creeping slyly about in the grass, manifestly to induce
me to examine the spot; then back to the fence again, chirping
excitedly; then down at another place, employing every artifice to make
me think the nest was where it was not; but I steadfastly refused to
budge from my tracks as long as she came up in a few moments after
descending, for in that case I knew that she was simply resorting to a
ruse to lead me astray. Finally she went down at a point which she had
previously avoided, and, as it was evident she was becoming exceedingly
anxious to go back upon her eggs, I watched her like a tiger intent on
his prey. Slyly she crept about in the grass, presently her chirping
ceased, and she disappeared.

Several minutes passed, and she did not come up, so I felt sure she had
gone down for good this time, and was sitting on her nest. Her husband
exerted himself to his utmost to beguile my attention with his choicest
arias, but no amount of finesse would now turn me from my purpose. I
made a bee-line for the spot where I had last seen the madame, stopping
not, nor veering aside for water, mud, bushes, or any other obstacle. A
search of a couple of minutes brought no find, for she had employed all
the strategy of which she was mistress in going to the nest, having
moused along in the grass for some distance after I had last seen her. I
made my search in an ever-widening circle, and at length espied some dry
grass spears in a tuft right at my feet; then the little prospective
mother flitted from her nest and went trailing on the ground, feigning
to be fatally wounded.

Acquainted with such tactics, I did not follow her, not even with my
eye, but looked down at my feet. Ah! the water sprites had been kind,
for there was the dainty crib, set on a high tuft of sod raised by the
winter's frosts, a little island castle in the wet marsh, cosey and dry.
It was my first savanna sparrow's nest, whether eastern or western. The
miniature cottage was placed under a fragment of dried cattle excrement,
which made a slant roof over it, protecting it from the hot rays of the
sun. Sunken slightly into the ground, the nest's rim was flush with the
short grass, while the longer stems rose about it in a green, filmy wall
or stockade.