discovered their nest. They probably built it by working early in the
morning, before I appeared upon the scene, as I never saw them with
material in their beaks. Guessing from their movements that the nest
was in a large maple that stood near by, I climbed the tree and
explored it thoroughly, looking especially in the forks of the
branches, as the authorities say these birds build in a fork.
But no nest could I find. Indeed, how can one by searching find a
bird's nest? I overshot the mark; the nest was much nearer me, almost
under my very nose, and I discovered it, not by searching but by a
casual glance of the eye, while thinking of other matters. The bird
was just settling upon it as I looked up from my book and caught her in
the act. The nest was built near the end of a long, knotty, horizontal
branch of an apple-tree, but effectually hidden by the grouping of the
leaves; it had three eggs, one of which proved to be barren. The two
young birds grew apace, and were out of the nest early in the second
week; but something caught one of them the first night. The other
probably grew to maturity, as it disappeared from the vicinity with
its parents after some days.

The blue-back's nest was scarcely a foot from the ground, in a little
bush situated in a low, dense wood of hemlock and beech and maple,
amid the Catskills,--a deep, massive, elaborate structure, in which the
sitting bird sank till her beak and tail alone were visible above
the brim. It was a misty, chilly day when I chanced to find the nest,
and the mother-bird knew instinctively that it was not prudent to leave
her four half incubated eggs uncovered and exposed for a moment.
When I sat down near the nest she grew very uneasy, and after trying in
vain to decoy me away by suddenly dropping from the branches and
dragging herself over the ground as if mortally wounded, she approached
and timidly and half doubtingly covered her eggs within two yards of