It was the superlative stupidity of this robin that saved her family. The workmen at first knocked her nest off to the ground. She had plenty of clay at hand, however, and began her nest again, following the ladder as it moved about the shed. Such amazing persistence won, of course. Out of wonder, finally, the men gave the ladder over to her and stood aside till her family affairs were attended to. Everything was right in time. After infinite scolding, she at last came off in triumph, with her brood of four. A striking illustration of this growing alliance between us and the birds is the nest of the great-crested flycatcher in the orchard. Great-crest has almost become an orchard-bird. At heart he is, and ever will be, a bird of the wilds. He is not tame--does not want to be tame; he is bold, and the dangers and advantages of orchard life attract him. His moving into an apple orchard is no less a wonder than would be an Apache chief's settling in New York or Boston. Most observers still count Great-crest among the wild and unreclaimed. Florence A. Merriam, speaking of his return in spring, says: "Not many days pass, however, before he is so taken up with domestic matters that his voice is rarely heard outside the woods"; and in Stearns's "Birds" I find: "It does not court the society of man, but prefers to keep aloof in the depths of the forest, where it leads a wild, shy, and solitary life." This is not Great-crest as I know him. I have found many of his nests, and never one in any but orchard trees. Riding along a country road lately, I heard Great-crest's call far ahead of me. I soon spied him on the wires of a telegraph-pole. Under him was a pear-tree, and a hundred yards away a farm-house. In the pear-tree I found his nest--snake-skins and all. I disagree, too, with most descriptions of this bird's cry. The authors I have read seem never to have heard him on a quiet May morning across a fifty-acre field. His voice is "harsh and discordant" when sounded into one's very ears. The sweetest-toned organ would be discordant to one inside the instrument. Give the bird the room he demands,--wide, early-morning fields,--and listen. A single shout, almost human it seems, wild, weird, and penetrating, yet clear and smooth as the blast of a bugle. One can never forget it, nor resist it; for it thrills like a resurrection call--the last, long summons to the spring waking. This solitary note is often repeated, but is never so rapid nor so long drawn out as the call of the flicker. [Illustration: "I soon spied him on the wires of a telegraph-pole."]