arkings on the spot. There
was no doubt about his being a redstart baby, as I had been convinced
from the first. When we had settled this, the little one was placed on a
branch, where he remained quite calmly, and we left him to his two
attendants.

The next morning we found the mother still hard at work in the same part
of the woods (we knew her by some feathers she had lost from her
breast), but the gallant little warbler was nowhere to be seen.

XX.

A CLEVER CUCKOO.

"Hark, the cuckoo, weatherwise,
Still hiding, farther onward woos you."

The mysterious bird, around whose name cluster some strange facts as
well as absurd fancies; shy and intolerant of the human race, yet bold
in protecting his treasures; devoted and tender in his family relations,
yet often known in the neighborhood where he passes his days as a mere
"wandering voice,"--

"No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery,"--

this bird, the cuckoo, was a stranger to me till one happy day last
June, when I came upon him where he could not escape, beside his own
nest.

In returning from our daily visit to the woods that morning, my
fellow-student turned down a narrow footway connecting the woods with
the home-fields, and I followed. She had passed through half its length,
her dog close behind her, when our eyes, ever searching the trees and
bushes, fell almost at the same instant upon a nest, with the sitting
bird at home. It was so near me that I could have touched it, being not
more than two feet from the ground, and hardly farther from the path.

Fearing to startle the little mother, whose frightened eyes were fixed
upon us, we announced our mutual discovery by a single movement of the
hand, and walked quietly past without pausing. Not until we reached the
open fields at the end did my comrade whisper, "a cuckoo," and our
hearts, if not our lips, sang with Wordsworth, "Thrice welcome, darling
of the spring," for the nest of this shy bird we hardly dared hope to
see.

After the morning of our happy discovery the cuckoo path became part of
our regular route home from the woods. Our first care was to dispel the
fears of the bird, and accustom her to seeing us, so for several days we
passed her without pausing, though we looked at her and spoke to her in
low tones as we went by.

Three times she flew at sight of us, but on the fourth morning she
remained, though with tail straight up and ready for instant flight