s plain that she hoped I had not
discovered her. Instantly she became silent and wary, coming to her nest
over the top of the trees, so quietly that I should not have known it
except for her shadow on the leaves. No talk or song now fell upon my
ear; calls outside were few and subdued. Everything was different from
the natural unconsciousness of the previous day; the birds were on
guard, and henceforth I should be under surveillance.

From this moment I lost my pleasure in the study, for I feel little
interest in the actions of a bird under the constraint of an unwelcome
presence, or in the shadow of constant fear and dread. What I care to
see is the natural life, the free, unstudied ways of birds who do not
notice or are not disturbed by spectators. Nor have I any pleasure in
going about the country staring into every tree, and poking into every
bush, thrusting irreverent hands into the mysteries of other lives, and
rudely tearing away the veils that others have drawn around their
private affairs. That they are only birds does not signify to me; for me
they are fellow-creatures; they have rights, which I am bound to
respect.

I prefer to make myself so little obvious, or so apparently harmless to
a bird, that she will herself show me her nest, or at least the leafy
screen behind which it is hidden. Then, if I take advantage of her
absence to spy upon her treasures, it is as a friend only,--a friend who
respects her desire for seclusion, who never lays profane hands upon
them, and who shares the secret only with one equally reverent and
loving. Naturally I do not find so many nests as do the vandals to whom
nothing is sacred, but I enjoy what I do find, in a way it hath not
entered into their hearts to conceive.

In spite of my disinclination, we made one more call upon the magpie
family, and this time we had a reception. This bird is intelligent and
by no means a slave to habit; because he has behaved in a certain way
once, there is no law, avian or divine, that compels him to repeat that
conduct on the next occasion. Nor is it safe to generalize about him, or
any other bird for that matter. One cannot say, "The magpie does thus
and so," because each individual magpie has his own way of doing, and
circumstances alter cases, with birds as well as with people.

On this occasion we placed ourselves boldly, though very quietly, in the
paths that run through the oak-brush. We had abandoned all attempt at
concealment; we