having probably been assured that no danger need be apprehended from
that side. It was not a likely place for minks, or they would not have
been so secure.

I noted but one nest of the wood pewee, and that, too, like so many
other nests, failed of issue. It was saddled upon a small dry limb of
a plane-tree that stood by the roadside, about forty feet from the
ground. Every day for nearly a week, as I passed by I saw the sitting
bird upon the nest. Then one morning she was not in her place, and on
examination the nest proved to be empty--robbed, I had no doubt, by the
red squirrels, as they were very abundant in its vicinity, and appeared
to make a clean sweep of every nest. The wood pewee builds an
exquisite nest, shaped and finished as if cast in a mould. It is
modeled without and within with equal neatness and art, like the nest
of the humming-bird and the little gray gnat-catcher. The material is
much more refractory than that used by either of these birds, being,
in the present case, dry, fine cedar twigs; but these were bound into
a shape as rounded and compact as could be moulded out of the most
plastic material. Indeed, the nest of this bird looks precisely like
a large, lichen-covered, cup-shaped excrescence of the limb upon which
it is placed. And the bird, while sitting, seems entirely at ease.
Most birds seem to make very hard work of incubation. It is a kind of
martyrdom which appears to tax all their powers of endurance.
They have such a fixed, rigid, predetermined look, pressed down into
the nest and as motionless as if made of cast-iron. But the wood pewee
is an exception. She is largely visible above the rim of the nest.
Her attitude is easy and graceful; she moves her head this way and
that, and seems to take note of whatever goes on about her; and if her
neighbor were to drop in for a little social chat, she could doubtless
do her part. In fact, she makes light and easy work of what, to most