Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/267

 completely. You may sit on it to rest among the brown leaves in the wood and not know it is there; unless the frightened escape of the brown mother birds gives you a hint, and even then it is invisible, so completely is it hidden in the debris dropped by the previous autumn. Of dead weed stalks, grasses and brown leaves it is not only built but roofed, and with an entrance on one side that to the uninitiated might be an entrance to the nest of a field mouse, indeed, but never that to a bird's nest. It is not for greater knowledge of nest hiding that the oven-bird need pray to the wood gods, nor may we know what further wisdom he seeks, but all summer long he asks for it in no uncertain tones.

Out of the very treetops while the oven-bird shouts his prayer below comes the voice of the red-eyed vireo, uttering moral platitudes from dawn till dusk. It is no wonder that some birds go wrong with this monotonous preacher steadily droning out, "Don't do this; don't do that," to them all day long. The bluejays, who have robber baron blood stirring always under their gaudy military coats, jeer at this prating of platitudes