live nest, how it eludes one! I have read of a noted criminal who could
hide himself pretty effectually in any room that contained the usual
furniture; he would embrace the support of a table so as to seem part
of it. The bird has studied the same art: it always blends its nest
with the surroundings, and sometimes its very openness hides it; the
light itself seems to conceal it. Then the birds build anew each year,
and so always avail themselves of the present and latest combination of
leaves and screens, of light and shade. What was very well concealed
one season may be quite exposed the next.

Going a-fishing or a-berrying is a good introduction to the haunts of
the birds, and to their nesting-places. You put forth your hand for the
berries, and there is a nest; or your tread by the creeks starts the
sandpiper or the water-thrush from the ground where its eggs are
concealed, or some shy wood-warbler from a bush. One day, fishing down
a deep wooded gorge, my hook caught on a limb overhead, and on pulling
it down I found I had missed my trout, but had caught a hummingbird's
nest. It was saddled on the limb as nicely as if it had been a grown
part of it.

Other collectors beside the oölogists are looking for birds'-nests,--
the squirrels and owls and jays and crows. The worst depredator in this
direction I know of is the fish crow, and I warn him to keep off my
premises, and charge every gunner to spare him not. He is a small
sneak-thief, and will rob the nest of every robin, wood thrush, and
oriole he can come at. I believe he fishes only when he is unable to
find birds' eggs or young birds. The genuine crow, the crow with the
honest "caw," "caw," I have never caught in such small business, though
the kingbird makes no discrimination between them, but accuses both
alike.