e next morning made a
thorough search through the swamp, looking into every bush and examining
every thicket. An hour or two of this hard work satisfied me for the
day, and I went home warm and tired, followed to the very door by the
mocking voice, triumphing, as it seemed, in my failure.

The next day, however, fortune smiled upon me; I came upon a nest, not
far above the ground, among the stems of a clump of shrubs, which
exactly answered the description of the one I sought. Careful not to lay
a finger on it, I slightly parted the branches above, and looked in upon
three pinkish-white eggs, small in size and dainty as tinted pearls.
Happy day, I thought, and the forerunner of happy to-morrows when I
should watch

"The green nest full of pleasant shade
Wherein three speckled eggs were laid,"

and see and delight in the family life centring about it.

To study a bird so shy required extraordinary precautions; I therefore
sought, and found, a post of observation a long way off, where I could
look through a natural vista among the shrubs, and with my glass bring
the bush and its precious contents into view. For greater seclusion in
my retreat, so that I should be as little conspicuous as possible, I
drew down a branch of the low tree over my seat, and fastened it with a
fine string to a stout weed below. Then I thought I had a perfect
screen; I devoutly hoped the birds would not notice me.

Vain delusion! and labor as vain! Doubtless two pairs of anxious eyes
watched from some neighboring bush all my careful preparations, and then
and there two despairing hearts bade farewell to their lovely little
home, abandoned it and its treasures to the spy and the destroyer, which
in their eyes I seemed to be.

This conclusion was forced upon me by the experiences of the next few
days. The birds absolutely would not approach the nest while I was in
the park. The first morning I sat motionless for nearly two hours, and
not a feather showed itself near that bush; it was plainly "tabooed."
During the next day the chat called from this side and that, moving
about in his wonderful way, without disturbing a twig, rustling a leaf,
or flitting a wing--as silently, indeed, as if he were a spirit
unclothed.

While waiting for him to show himself, making myself as nearly a part of
nature about me as a mortal is gifted to do, I congratulated myself upon
the one good look I had secured, for, with all my efforts and all my
watching, I