One day, somewhat later, in the winter wren's quarter, where there were pools left by a heavy rain, we met them again. Madam was bathing, and her husband accompanied her as guard and protector. They flew away together. All of June we heard him sing, and we often followed him, but never again did we surprise a secret of his, till the very last day of the month. We had been making a visit to our veery nests, and on our way back noticed that the tanager was more than usually interested in our doings. He seemed very busy too, with the air of a person of family. While we were watching to see what it meant, he caught a flying insect and held it in his mouth. Then we knew he had little folk to feed, so we seated ourselves on the fungus log, and waited for him to point one out. He did. He could not resist giving that delicate morsel to his first-born. With many wary approaches, he dropped at last into the scanty undergrowth, and there, a foot above the ground, we saw the young tanager. He was a little dumpling of a fellow, with no hint in his baby-suit of the glory that shall clothe him by and by. But where was the mother? and where had they nested? But for that untimely sneeze, as I shall always believe, they would have made their home in that beautiful nest on the arch, and we should have been there to see. XVII. THE WILES OF A WARBLER. "Hark to that petulant chirp! What ails the warbler? Mark his capricious ways to draw the eye." We called him the blue, but that was not his whole name by any means. Fancy a scientist with a new bird to label, contenting himself with one word! His whole name is--or was till lately--black-throated blue-backed warbler, or _Dendroica coerulescens_, and that being fairly set down for future reference for whom it may concern, I shall call him henceforth, as we did in the woods, the blue. For a day or two at first he was to us, like many another of his size, only a "wandering voice." But it was an enticing voice, a sweet-toned succession of _z-z-z_ in ascending scale, and it was so persistent that when we really made the attempt, we had no trouble in getting sight of the little beauty hardly bigger than one's thumb. He was a wary little sprite, and though he looked down upon us as we turned opera-glasses toward him,--a battery that puts some birds into a panic,--he was not alarmed. He probably made up his mind then and there, that it should be his special business to keep us away from his nest, for really that seemed to be his occupation. No sooner did we set foot in the woods than his sweet song attracted us. We followed it, and he, carelessly as it seemed, but surely, led us on around and around, always in a circle without end.