either were the birds deceived, not even when we tried the
Indian's tactics, and plumed ourselves with green branches. Ah, the
suspicious creatures, how they watched us with the food in their beaks,
abstaining for one whole hour from ministering that precious charge
which otherwise would have been visited every moment! Quite near us
they would come at times, between us and the nest, eying us so sharply.
Then they would move off, and apparently try to forget our presence.
Was it to deceive us, or to persuade himself and mate that there was no
serious cause for alarm, that the male would now and then strike up in
full song and move off to some distance through the trees? But the
mother bird did not allow herself to lose sight of us at all, and both
birds, after carrying the food in their beaks a long time, would
swallow it themselves. Then they would obtain another morsel and
apparently approach very near the nest, when their caution or prudence
would come to their aid, and they would swallow the food and hasten
away. I thought the young birds would cry out, but not a syllable from
them. Yet this was, no doubt, what kept the parent birds away from the
nest. The clamor the young would have set up on the approach of the old
with food would have exposed everything.

After a time I felt sure I knew within a few feet where the nest was
concealed. Indeed, I thought I knew the identical bush. Then the birds
approached each other again and grew very confidential about another
locality some rods below. This puzzled us, and, seeing the whole
afternoon might be spent in this manner, and the mystery unsolved, we
determined to change our tactics and institute a thorough search of the
locality. This procedure soon brought things to a crisis, for, as my
companion clambered over a log by a little hemlock, a few yards from
where we had been sitting, with a cry of alarm out sprang the young
birds from their nest in the hemlock, and, scampering and fluttering
over the leaves, disappeared in different directions. This brought the
parent birds on the scene in an agony of alarm. Their distress was
pitiful. They threw themselves on the ground at our very feet, and
fluttered, and cried, and trailed themselves before us, to draw us away
from the place, or distract our attention from the helpless young. I
shall not forget the male bird, how bright he looked, how sharp the
contrast as he trailed his painted plumage there on the dry leaves.
Apparent