hen darts
quickly across the road, barely clearing the ground, and disappears
amid the bushes on the opposite side.

In the trees that line one of the main streets and fashionable drives
leading out of Washington city, and less than half a mile from the
boundary, I have counted the nests of five different species at one
time, and that without any very close scrutiny of the foliage, while
in many acres of woodland, half a mile off, I searched in vain for a
single nest. Among the five that interested me most was that of a blue
grossbeak. Here this bird, which, according to Audubon's observations,
in Louisiana is shy and recluse, affecting remote marshes and the
borders of large ponds of stagnant water, had placed its nest in the
lowest twig of the lowest branch of a large sycamore, immediately over
a great thoroughfare, and so near the ground that a person standing in
a cart or sitting on a horse could have reached it with his hand. The
nest was composed mainly of fragments of newspaper and stalks of
grass, and, though so low, was remarkably well concealed by one of the
peculiar clusters of twigs and leaves which characterize this tree.
The nest contained young when I discovered it, and though the parent
birds were much annoyed by my loitering about beneath the tree, they
paid little attention to the stream of vehicles that was constantly
passing. It is a wonder to me when the birds could have built it, for
they are much shyer when building than at other times. No doubt they
worked mostly in the morning, having the early hours all to
themselves.

Another pair of blue grossbeaks built in a graveyard within the city
limits. The nest was placed in a low bush, and the male continued to
sing at intervals till the young were ready to fly. The song of this
bird is a rapid, intricate warble, like that of the indigo-bird,
though stronger and louder. Indeed, these two birds so much resemble
each other in color, form, manner, voice, and general habits that,
were it not for the difference in size,--the grossbeak being nearly as
large again as the indigo-bird,--it would be a hard matter to tell
them apart. 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