part. The females of both species are clad in the same
reddish-brown suits. So are the young the first season.
Of course in the deep, primitive woods, also, are nests; but how
rarely we find them! The simple art of the bird consists in choosing
common, neutral-tinted material, as moss, dry leaves, twigs, and
various odds and ends, and placing the structure on a convenient
branch, where it blends in color with its surroundings; but how
consummate is this art, and how skillfully is the nest concealed! We
occasionally light upon it, but who, unaided by the movements of
the bird, could find it out? During the present season I went to the
woods nearly every day for a fortnight without making any
discoveries of this kind, till one day, paying them a farewell
visit, I chanced to come upon several nests. A black and white
creeping warbler suddenly became much alarmed as I approached a
crumbling old stump in a dense part of the forest. He alighted upon
it, chirped sharply, ran up and down its sides, and finally left it
with much reluctance. The nest, which contained three young birds
nearly fledged, was placed upon the ground, at the foot of the
stump, and in such a position that the color of the young harmonized
perfectly with the bits of bark, sticks, etc., lying about. My eye
rested upon them for the second time before I made them out. They
hugged the nest very closely, but as I put down my hand they all
scampered off with loud cries for help, which caused the parent
birds to place themselves almost within my reach. The nest was
merely a little dry grass arranged in a thick bed of dry leaves.
This was amid a thick undergrowth. Moving on into a passage of large
stately hemlocks, with only here and there a small beech or maple
rising up into the perennial twilight, I paused to make out a note
which was entirely new to me. It is still in my ear. Though
unmistakably a bird note, it yet suggested the bleating of a tiny
lambkin. Presently the birds appeared,--a pair of the solitary
vireo. They came flitting from point to point, alighting only for a
moment at a time, the male silent, but the female uttering this
strange, tender note. It was a rendering into some new sylvan
dialect of the human sentiment of maidenly love. It was really
pathetic in its sweetness and childlike confidence and joy. I soon
discovered that the pair were building a nest upon a low branch a
few yards from me. The male flew cautiously to the spot and adju
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