From a tiny hawthorne bush, no higher than a collie's back, a field sparrow flies nervously to a low limb of a hickory tree and begs that her nest be not disturbed. It is neatly placed in the middle of the bush about a foot from the ground, made of medium grasses and rootlets and lined with finer grasses and horsehair. The three bluish-white eggs with rufous markings at the larger end are the field-sparrow's own. Into a nest found a month ago, at the foot of a yarrow stalk, the cowbird had sneaked three speckled eggs, leaving only one of the pretty eggs of the field-sparrow. At that time the cowbirds were to be seen everywhere; they chattered every morning in the trees, and the females left their unwelcome eggs in nearly every nest. One little red-eyed vireo's nest had five cowbirds' eggs,--none of her own. But the birds which are building now are generally safe from the parasite. Only rarely is a cowbird's egg found after the middle of July. No cowbirds have been seen since the first week of the month, save the young one on the stump, which the field-sparrow was feeding this morning. They disappear early, seeking seclusion for the moulting. When they emerge from their hiding places they form into flocks, spending their days in the grain-fields and near the rivers where the food is most abundant and easy to procure. At nightfall they congregate, like the red-winged blackbirds, in the sand-bar willows on the river islands. * * * * * Daintily flitting from one branch to another, the redstart weaves threads of reddish gold and black, like strands of night and noon, among the old trees. He has wandered over through the woods from the creek, where his mate built a cup-like nest in a crotch toward the top of a slender white oak. Busy always, he stays but a few moments and then passes on as silently as a July zephyr. The halting voice of the preacher, the red-eyed vireo, comes out of the thicket; then, from an oak overhead, where a little twig is trembling, the softer voice of the warbling vireo queries: "Can't you see it's best to sing and work like me?", with the emphasis on the "me." Blue-jays loiter down the old road, making short flights from tree to tree, moving in the one plane and with slowly beating wings; only rarely do they fold their wings and dip. Redheads and flickers, like the other woodpeckers, have a slightly dipping flight. They open and close their wings in quick succession, not slowly like the goldfinches; consequently their dips are not so pronounced. The line of their flight is a ripple rather than a billow.