things, and their cradle is so deep
and dark and hidden. There were no fatalities, I am sure, following my
efforts to prop the leaning structure, though the wrens were just as sure
that it was all a fatality--utterly misjudging my motives. As a rule, I
have never been able to help much in such extremities. Either I arrive too
late, or else I blunder.

I thought, for a moment, that it was the nest of the long-billed's cousin,
the short-billed marsh-wren, that I had found--which would have been a gem
indeed, with pearly eggs instead of chocolate ones. Though I was out for
the mere joy of being out, I had really come with a hope of discovering
this mousy mite of a wren, and of watching her ways. It was like hoping to
watch the ways of the "wunk." Several times I have been near these little
wrens; but what chance has a pair of human eyes with a skulking four
inches of brownish streaks and bars in the middle of a marsh! Such birds
are the everlasting despair of the naturalist, the salt of his earth. The
belief that a pair of them dwelt somewhere in this green expanse, that I
might at any step come upon them, made me often forget the mosquitos.

When I reached the ridge of rose and mallow bushes, two wrens began
muttering in the grass with different notes and tones from those of the
long-billed. I advanced cautiously. Soon one flashed out and whipped back
among the thick stems again, exposing himself just long enough to show me
_stellaris_, the little short-billed wren I was hunting.

I tried to stand still for a second glimpse and a clue to the nest; but
the mosquitos! Things have come to a bad pass with the bird-hunter, whose
only gun is an opera-glass, when he cannot stand stock-still for an hour.
His success depends upon his ability to take root. He needs light feet, a
divining mind, and many other things, but most of all he needs patience.
There are few mortals, however, with mosquito-proof patience--one that
would stand the test here. Remembering a meadow in New England where
stellaris nested, I concluded to wait till chance took me thither, and
passed on.

This ridge of higher ground proved to be a mosquito roost--a thousand
here to one in the deeper, denser grass. As I hurried across I noted with
great satisfaction that the pink-white blossoms of the spreading dogbane
were covered with mosquito carcasses. It lessened my joy somewhat to find,
upon examination, that all the victims were males. Either they had drunk
p