. St. Nicholas [serial] . ut Ihalf believe the feathered owners would haveoverlooked this, had it not been for the pair ofblue jays that bucaneered that patch of we were getting a picture I saw themeying us curiously ; but they slunk away amongthe dark firs, squawking jay-talk about some-thing I did nt understand. Two days laterwe skirted the clump to see if the sense ofwarbler propriety had been too severely shockedby the camera. In an instant I translatedevery syllable of what that pair of blue pirateshad squawked. The scattered remnants of thenest and the broken bits of shell told


. St. Nicholas [serial] . ut Ihalf believe the feathered owners would haveoverlooked this, had it not been for the pair ofblue jays that bucaneered that patch of we were getting a picture I saw themeying us curiously ; but they slunk away amongthe dark firs, squawking jay-talk about some-thing I did nt understand. Two days laterwe skirted the clump to see if the sense ofwarbler propriety had been too severely shockedby the camera. In an instant I translatedevery syllable of what that pair of blue pirateshad squawked. The scattered remnants of thenest and the broken bits of shell told all. These gray warblers, however much theywere upset by the camera-fiend and blue-jay916 WARBLER WAYS. 917 depredations, were not to be thwarted. Theyactually went to housekeeping again within fortyyards of the old home site. The new nest wasplaced in a fir sapling very like the first, butbetter hidden from marauding blue-jays. Itwas supremely better located from the photog-raphers point of view. Just at the side of the. a cup of grasses, feather-lined, nestled in thefork of the fir. new site was the sawed-off stump of an old fir,upon which we climbed and aimed the camerastraight into the nest. There, instead of four,were only two small nestlings. They stretchedtheir skinny necks and opened wide their yel-low-lined mouths in an attitude of unmistak-able hunger. The moment the mother returned and foundus so dangerously near her brood, she wasscared almost out of her senses. She fell fromthe top of the tree in a fluttering fit. Shecaught, quivering, on the limb a foot from myhand. Involuntarily, I reached to help thing! She could nt hold on, but slippedthrough the branches and clutched my never saw such an exaggerated case of thechills, or heard such a pitiful, high-pitched noteof pain. I stooped to see what ailed ! both wings broken and unable to holdwith her claws! She fell like an autumnleaf to the ground. I leaped down, but shehad limped under a bush


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Keywords: ., bookauthordodgemar, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookyear1873