where I sat. I disturbed her several times to note her ways.
There came to be something almost appealing in her looks and manner,
and she would keep her place on her precious eggs till my outstretched
hand was within a few feet of her. Finally, I covered the cavity of
the nest with a dry leaf. This she did not remove with her beak,
but thrust her head deftly beneath it and shook it off upon the ground.
Many of her sympathizing neighbors, attracted by her alarm note,
came and had a peep at the intruder and then flew away, but the male
bird did not appear upon the scene. The final history of this nest I
am unable to give, as I did not again visit it till late in the season,
when, of course, it was empty.

Years pass without my finding a brown-thrasher's nest; it is not a nest
you are likely to stumble upon in your walk; it is hidden as a miser
hides his gold, and watched as jealously. The male pours out his rich
and triumphant song from the tallest tree he can find, and fairly
challenges you to come and look for his treasures in his vicinity.
But you will not find them if you go. The nest is somewhere on the
outer circle of his song; he is never so imprudent as to take up his
stand very near it. The artists who draw those cosy little pictures of
a brooding mother-bird with the male perched but a yard away in full
song, do not copy from nature. The thrasher's nest I found thirty or
forty rods from the point where the male was wont to indulge in his
brilliant recitative. It was in an open field under a low
ground-juniper. My dog disturbed the sitting bird as I was passing
near. The nest could be seen only by lifting up and parting away
the branches. All the arts of concealment had been carefully studied.
It was the last place you would think of looking, and, if you did look,
nothing was visible but the dense green circle of the low-spreading
juniper. When you approached, the bird would keep her place till you