and
a fourth on the fourth morning. In due time incubation began, and
thenceforth all went well with our dusky neighbors.

It is an anxious moment for all birds when their young leave the nest.
One noontime by the unusual mewing of a parent catbird I felt sure that
the critical time had come. Sure enough, there sat one of the young on a
twig a few inches above the nest, motionless and hushed. No lusty
response to the agitated cry of the mother, as is usually the case with
the robin. "No publicity" is the watchword of the young catbirds as well
as of the old. An hour or two later another young one was perched on a
branch, and before night, when no one was looking, they both
disappeared, leaving two motionless birds in the nest. The next morning
early, without any signs of alarm or agitation on the part of the old
birds, they took the important step. It could hardly have been much of a
flight with any of them, as their wing-quills were only partially
developed, and their tails were mere stubs. For several days afterward
no sign or sound of old or young was seen or heard. They were probably
keeping well concealed in the near-by trees or in the vines and
currant-bushes in the vineyard. In about a week the whole family
appeared briefly in upper branches of the maples near the house. The
young were distinguishable from the old only by their shorter tails. A
few days later the parent birds were seen moving stealthily through the
vines and bushes about the house, or perching on the near-by stakes that
supported the wire netting. Are they coming back for a second brood? was
the question in our minds.

Soon we began to hear snatches of song from the male, then one morning a
regular old-time burst of joy from him in the vine that held the old
nest. Then he sang in a syringa-bush near the window on the south side
of the cottage, and both birds were soon seen paying frequent visits to
the bush. We felt sure another brood was in the air. Whether or not the
first brood were now shifting for themselves, we did not know; they
never again appeared upon the scene. Finally, on the morning of the
Fourth of July, the foundation of a new nest was started in the
syringa-bush three feet from the ground, and barely four feet from the
window!

We had a view of the proceedings that the first site did not afford us.
The old nest appeared to be in perfect condition, but there was
evidently no thought with the birds of using it again, as the robin