My fellow bird-student became fairly bewitched, and could not rest till she found his nest. For my part I gave up the warbler family long ago, as too small, too uneasy, too fond of tree-tops, to waste time and patience over. In these her native woods, my comrade led in our walks, and the moment we heard his tantalizing _z-z-z_ she turned irresistibly toward it. I followed, of course, happy to be anywhere under these trees. One morning she tracked him inch by inch till she was fortunate enough to trace him to a wild corner in the woods given up to a tangle of fallen trees, saplings, and other growth. She went home happy, sure she was on the trail. The next day we turned our steps to that quarter and penetrated the jungle till we reached a moderately clear spot facing an impenetrable mass of low saplings. There we took our places, to wait with what patience we might for the blue. Our lucky star was in the ascendant that day, for we had not been there three minutes before a small, inconspicuous bird dropped into the bushes a few feet from us. My friend's eye followed her, and in a second fell upon the nest the little creature was lining, in a low maple about two feet from the ground. But who was she? For it is one of the difficulties about nests, that the brightly-colored male, whom one knows so well, is very sure not to show himself in the neighborhood, and his spouse is certain to look just like everybody else. However, there is always some mark by which we may know, and as soon as the watcher secured a good look she announced in an excited whisper, "We have it! a female blue, building." So it proved to be, and we planted our seats against trees for backs, and arranged ourselves to stay. The dog seeing this preparation, and recognizing it as somewhat permanent, with a heavy sigh laid himself out full length, and composed himself to sleep. The work over that nest was one of the prettiest bits of bird-life I ever watched. Never was a scrap of a warbler, a mere pinch of feathers, so perfectly delighted with anything as she with that dear little homestead of hers. It was pretty; it looked outside like the dainty hanging cradle of a vireo, but instead of being suspended from a horizontal forked twig, it was held in an upright fork made by four twigs of the sapling. The little creature's body seemed too small to hold her joy; she simply could not bring her mind to leave it. She rushed off a short distance and brought some infinitesimal atom of something not visible to our coarse sight, but very important in hers. This she arranged carefully, then slipped into the nest and moulded it into place by pressing her breast against it and turning around.