les. Imagine how a mother bird would feel to have him come stealing
upon her little brood in that horrid way! When he crawled over the dead
leaves I noted with a shiver that he made no sound. Thinking of the
gnats, I watched his every movement till he had left the premises and
wormed his way off through the brush. Though quite engrossed with the
gnats, it was finally forced upon me that there is more than one family
in the world. The blue-gray's oak was a favored one. A pair of
hang-birds had built there before the gnats came, and now two more
families had come, making four for the big oak.

When first suspecting a house on the north side of the tree, I moved my
chair over there. Presently a vireo with disordered breast feathers flew
down on a dead twig close to the ground and leaned over with a tired
anxious look, and craning her neck, turned her head on one side, and
bent her eyes on the ground scrutinizingly. Then she hopped down, picked
up something, threw it away, picked up another piece and flew back to
her perch with it, as if to make up her mind if she really wanted that.
Then her mate came, raised his crown and looked down at the bit of
material with a puzzled air as if wishing he knew what to say; as if he
felt he ought to be able to help her decide. But he seemed helpless and
could only follow her around when she was at work, singing to her
betimes, and keeping off friends or enemies who came too near. When the
young hatched I noticed a still more marked difference between the
nervous manners of the gnats, and the repose of vireos. While the gnat
flipped about distractedly, the vireo sat calmly beside her nest, an
exquisite white basket hanging under the leaves in the sun, or walked
carefully over the branches looking for food for the young. Some days
before finding out the facts, I suspected that the wood pewee perching
on the old tree had more important business there, for the way he and
his mate flew back and forth to the oak top was very pointed. So again I
moved my chair. To my delight the wood pewee flew up in the tree, sat
down on a horizontal crotch, and went through the motions of moulding.

There were two birds, however, that simply used the tree as a
resting-place, as far as I ever knew. A hummingbird perched on the tip
of a twig, looking from below like a good sized bumblebee as he preened
his feathers and looked off upon the world below. At the other side of
the oak a pretty pink dove perched on