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 Mar., i9o 4 [ THE CONDOR 33 and look into the nest. When I first parted the branches and looked inW the feather-lined cup, two small nestlings stretched their skinny necks and opened their mouths with unmistakable signs of hunger. The moment the mother returned and found me at the nest she was scared al- most out of her senses. She fell from the top of the tree in a fluttering fit. She caught quivering on the limb a foot from my hand. But unable to hold on, she slipped through the branches and clutched my shoe. I never saw such an exag- gerated case of the chills. I stooped to see what ailed her. She wavered like an autunm leaf to the ground. I leaped down, but she had limped under a bush and suddenly got well. Of course I knew she was tricking me! But I never saw higher skill in a leathered artist. The next day my heart was hardened against all her alluring wiles and croco- dile tears. She played her best, but the minute she failed to win, I got a furious berating. It was no begging note now. She perched over my head and called me every name in the warbler vocabulary. When she saw I was shoving the one- MALE YELLOW-THROAT FEEDING YOUNG eyed monster right at her children, she screamed "Fly! Flv! for your lives." Both the scanty-leathered, bob-tailed youngsters jumped blindly out of the nest into the bushes below. She outdid all previous performances. But not to be fooled, I kept an eye on one nestling and soon replaced him in the nest where he belonged. I looked for half an hour and then found the second dumpy little fellow sitting right before my eyes. Nature always hides such creatures from me by an almost invis- ible veil of mystery. I've seen a flock of half a dozen grouse flutter up into a fir and disappear to my eyes as completely as a cloud of fog before the sun. It was easy enough to get pictures of the nest and young, but a very different matter to get the parents within shot of the camera. After frequent visits, how- ever, the gray mother seemed to recognize the camera as harmless. This took time and an unlimited amount of patience, but it gave the best opportunities of studying the bird's habits. The first day I really met the gray gentleman face to face was when I was trying to get a photograph of the mother as she came home to feed. She had