ould divine
safety in the shadow of the cottage, but tried to act as if oblivious of
their goings and comings. We saw them now and then stealthily inspecting
the tangle of honeysuckle on the east side of the veranda, where a robin
last season reared a brood, and the low hedge of barberry-bushes on the
south side of the cottage, where a song sparrow had her nest. If they
come, which will they take, we wondered. Several times in the early
morning I heard the male singing vivaciously and confidently in the
thick of the honeysuckle. I guessed that the honeysuckle was the choice
of the male, and that his song was a paean in praise of it, addressed to
his mate. But it was nearly a week before his musical argument prevailed
and the site was apparently agreed upon.

When the nest-building actually began, the birds were so shy about it
that, watch as I might, I failed to catch them in the act. One morning I
saw the mother bird in the garden with nesting-material in her beak, but
she failed to come to the honeysuckle with it while I watched from a
near-by covert. At the same time robins were flying here and there with
loaded beaks, and wood thrushes were going through the air trailing long
strips of white paper behind them, but the catbird was an emblem of
secrecy itself. She, too, brought fragments of white paper to her nest,
but no one saw her do it. Like other nest-builders, she apparently put
in her big strokes of work in the early morning before the sleepers on
the veranda were stirring. A few times my inquisitive eye, cautiously
peering over the railing, started her from the vine, but I never saw her
enter it with leaf, stick, or straw; yet slowly the nest grew and came
into shape, and finally received its finishing touches. So cautiously
had the birds proceeded that, were they capable of concepts like us, I
should fancy they flattered themselves that we had not the least
suspicion of their little secret. The male ceased to sing near the house
after the nest was begun. So much time elapsed after the finishing of
the nest before the first egg appeared in it that some members of the
household feared the birds had deserted it, especially as they were not
seen about the premises for several days. But the weather was wet and
cool, and the eggs ripened slowly. Then one morning the birds were seen
again, and one blue-green egg was discovered in the nest. The next
morning another egg was added, and a third egg on the third morning,