the nest of
the red-eyed vireo, which hung basket-like on the end of a low,
drooping branch of the beech. I should never have seen it had the
bird kept her place. It contained three eggs of the bird's own, and
one of the cow bunting. The strange egg was only just perceptibly
larger than the others, yet three days after, when I looked into the
nest again and found all but one egg hatched, the young interloper
was at least four times as large as either of the others, and with
such a superabundance of bowels as to almost smother his bedfellows
beneath them. That the intruder should fare the same as the rightful
occupants, and thrive with them, was more than ordinary potluck; but
that it alone should thrive, devouring, as it were, all the rest, is
one of those freaks of Nature in which she would seem to discourage
the homely virtues of prudence and honesty. Weeds and parasites have
the odds greatly against them, yet they wage a very successful war
nevertheless.

The woods hold not such another gem as the nest of the hummingbird.
The finding of one is an event to date from. It is the next best
thing to finding an eagle's nest. I have met with but two, both by
chance. One was placed on the horizontal branch of a chestnut-tree,
with a solitary green leaf, forming a complete canopy, about an
inch and a half above it. The repeated spiteful dartings of the bird
past my ears, as I stood under the tree, caused me to suspect that I
was intruding upon some one's privacy; and, following it with my
eye, I soon saw the nest, which was in process of construction.
Adopting my usual tactics of secreting myself near by, I had the
satisfaction of seeing the tiny artist at work. It was the female,
unassisted by her mate. At intervals of two or three minutes she
would appear with a small tuft of some cottony substance in her
beak, dart a few times through and around the tree, and alighting
quickly in the nest, arrange the material she had brought, using her
breast as a model.

The other nest I discovered in a dense forest on the side of a
mountain. The sitting bird was disturbed as I passed beneath her.
The whirring of her wings arrested my attention, when, after a short
pause, I had the good luck to see, through an opening in the leaves,
the bird return to her nest, which appeared like a mere wart or
excrescence on a small branch. The hummingbird, unlike all others,
does not alight upon the nest, but flies into it. She enters it as
quick