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 84 THE CONDOR Vol. IV ing and would not have been noticed when they were seen, if the exact loca- tion had not been known. The nests were always so thoroughly concealed that it was impossible to photograph them in situ as there was never any point of view that two whole eggs could be seen from. May t5 she flushed and disappeared while ten feet distant, and by means of the transit, was seen to return about two minutes later, but there would have been no reason to suppose that there was a bird or nest anywhere around if it had not been previously located, and considerable clipping was necessary to make it possible to see it from a distance of fifty feet. She usu- ally sat very deep in the nest with only the beak and tail showing above the edge, but at the slightest sound, she stood up in the nest and looked all around, sliding out on the opposite side from anything that appeared, like the shadow of a falling leaf. May 7, 8 a. m., female setting and passed the time eating caterpillars while the nest was being examined. She did not go over five feet from it this time, till I left when she followed for about twenty feet, and kept almost within reach, watching me very closely with the in- tense manner that anyone would un- consciously assume if trying to identify a bird that is difficult to see but likely to be lost altogether if any noise is made--as if she were trying to ident- ify me. When she started back, I stopped, but she went to the nest not having made a sound all the time. The male was usually singing or chipping not less than fifty yards away, but May 20, he returned silently and renewed his attentions in the way that I supposed only preceded the egg- laying period, but the female showed no signs of any eggs forming, when dis- sected. The black patch on the throat of the male was divided by a horizontal white line so it was considered neces- sary to collect them both, but it is a custom that never seems to develop toleration, and it seems to be more dis- tasteful each time, but my ornithologi- cal apprenticeship, for about the first eight years, was strictly of the opera glass order in the case of insectivorous and song birds. One day a collection of skins was examined for the first time; about three out of four of the common birds were recognized, the most com- plete and mortifying failure being that of a yellow warbler,--of course the labels were not looked at purposely. In clear weather, I could without any glass distinguish the colors of the flags of the Weather Bureau, on Blue Hill, from Clarendon Hills (in Massachusetts) a distance that must be quite five miles, which is a long way in that hazy at- mosphere, but for some reason I can never be sure of the exact colors of a bird that is not familiar to me, in the constantly changing light and shadow that it passes through, especially on very bright days when the eyes are more or less dazzled, and it seems to me perfectly possible that staring at green leaves so long and fixedly as is often necessary may make colors seem differ- ent from what they really are. Black-throated gray warblers do not object to human association at all; one nest was fifteen feet up on an oak branch, directly over a trail that was used at least six times a day by people going for mail, and generally much oftener. It cannot be for protection from jays etc., for obvious reasons. The male and female seem much more dependent on each other when in trouble than birds usually are. They hop about the branches always within four or five feet of each other, looking everywhere for the nest. The female does not usu- ally begin to complain till after about five minutes; and as the male is usually too far away to hear her faint chipping, she hasto go after him, as his louder song is nearly always audible. One female that was followed for consider- ably over one hundred yards, flew rap- idly and almost silently from tree to tree till about fifty yards from the mate