mself under a low, projecting rock close to the tree in
which we supposed the nest to be, while I moved off around the
mountain-side. It was not long before the youth had their secret. The
tree, which was low and wide branching, and overrun with lichens,
appeared at a cursory glance to contain not one dry or decayed limb.
Yet there was one a few feet long, in which, when my eyes were piloted
thither, I detected a small round orifice.

As my weight began to shake the branches, the consternation of both
old and young was great. The stump of a limb that held the nest was
about three inches thick, and at the bottom of the tunnel was
excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke in the thin wall,
and the young, which were full-fledged, looked out upon the world for
the first time. Presently one of them, with a significant chirp, as
much as to say, "It is time we were out of this," began to climb up
toward the proper entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he looked
around without manifesting any surprise at the grand scene that lay
spread out before him. He was taking his bearings and determining how
far he could trust the power of his untried wings to take him out of
harm's way. After a moment's pause, with a loud chirrup, he launched
out, and made tolerable headway. The others rapidly followed. Each
one, as it started upward, from a sudden impulse, contemptuously
saluted the abandoned nest with its excrement.

[Illustration: BARN SWALLOW AND NEST.]

Though generally regular in their habits and instincts, yet the birds
sometimes seem as whimsical and capricious as superior beings. One is
not safe, for instance, in making any absolute assertion as to their
place or mode of building. Ground builders often get up into a bush,
and tree builders sometimes get upon the ground or into a tussock of
grass. The song-sparrow, which is a ground builder, has been known to
build in the knot-hole of a fence rail, and a chimney swallow once got
tired of soot and smoke, and fastened its nest on a rafter in a hay
barn. A friend tells me of a pair of barn swallows which, taking a
fanciful turn, saddled their nest in the loop of a rope that was
pendent from a peg in the peak, and liked it so well that they
repeated the experiment next year. I have known the social sparrow, or
"hair bird," to build under a shed, in a tuft of hay that hung down,
through the loose flooring, from the mow above. It usually contents
itself with a half a dozen