hout a mate; yet she had gained the affections of the consort of
the busy female, and thus the cause of their jealous quarrel became
apparent. Having obtained the confidence of her faithless paramour,
the _second_ female began preparing to weave a nest in an adjoining
elm by tying together certain pendent twigs as a foundation. The
male now associated chiefly with the intruder, whom he even assisted
in her labor, yet did not wholly forget his first partner, who
called on him one evening in a low, affectionate tone, which was
answered in the same strain. While they were thus engaged in
friendly whispers, suddenly appeared the rival, and a violent
_rencontre_ ensued, so that one of the females appeared to be
greatly agitated, and fluttered with spreading wings as if
considerably hurt. The male, though prudently neutral in the
contest, showed his culpable partiality by flying off with his
paramour, and for the rest of the evening left the tree to his
pugnacious consort. Cares of another kind, more imperious and
tender, at length reconciled, or at least terminated, these disputes
with the jealous females; and by the aid of the neighboring
bachelors, who are never wanting among these and other birds, peace
was at length completely restored by the restitution of the quiet
and happy condition of monogamy."

Let me not forget to mention the nest under the mountain ledge, the
nest of the common pewee,--a modest mossy structure, with four
pearl-white eggs,--looking out upon some wild scene and over-hung by
beetling crags. After all has been said about the elaborate,
high-hung structures, few nests perhaps awaken more pleasant
emotions in the mind of the beholder than this of the pewee,--the
gray, silent rocks, with caverns and dens where the fox and the wolf
lurk, and just out of their reach, in a little niche, as if it grew
there, the mossy tenement!

Nearly every high projecting rock in my range has one of these
nests. Following a trout stream up a wild mountain gorge, not long
since, I counted five in the distance of a mile, all within easy
reach, but safe from the minks and the skunks, and well housed from
the storms. In my native town I know a pine and oak clad hill,
round-topped, with a bold, precipitous front extending halfway
around it. Near the top, and along this front or side, there crops
out a ledge of rocks unusually high and cavernous. One immense
layer projects many feet, allowing a person or many persons,
stan