Some birds approach their nest in a loitering, aimless sort of way, as if they had no particular business, in that quarter, and, if they see any cause for alarm, depart with an indifferent air that reveals nothing of their secret. Not thus the ingenuous lazuli. She showed her anxiety every moment; coming in the most businesslike way, and proclaiming her errand to the most careless observer, till I thought every boy on the street would know where her eggs were to be found. She had a very pretty way of going to the nest; indeed, all her manners were winning. She always alighted on the peach-tree branch, looked about on all sides, especially at me in my seat on the piazza, flirted her tail, uttered an anxious "phit," and then jumped off the limb and dived under the bushes near the ground. It is to be presumed that she ascended to her nest behind the leaves by hopping from twig to twig, though this I could never manage to see. And what of her gay little spouse all this time? Did he spend his days cheering her with music, as all the fathers of feathered families are fabled to do? Indeed he did not, and until I watched very closely, and saw him going about over the poplars in silence, I thought he had left the neighborhood. Once in the day he had a good singing time, about five o'clock in the morning, two hours before the sun rose over the mountains. If one happened to be awake then, he would hear the most rapturous song, delivered at the top of his voice, and continuing for a long time. But as it grew lighter, and the human world began to stir, he became quiet again, and, if he sang at all, he went so far from home that I did not hear him. But the wise little blue-head had not deserted; he was merely cautious. Every time that the little sitter went off for food she met him somewhere, and he came back with her. Occasionally he took a peep at the treasures himself, but he never entered by her roundabout way. He always flew directly in from above. Ten days passed away in this quiet manner, my attention divided between the birds, the dragonflies, and the clacking grasshopper, who went jerking himself about with a noise like a subdued lawn-mower, giving one the impression that his machinery was out of order. The tenth day of sitting we had a south wind. That does not seem very terrible, but a south wind on the shore of the Great Salt Lake is something to be dreaded. "A wind that is dizzy with whirling play, A dozen winds that have lost their way."