In a clump of blackcap brambles, at the end of the grape arbor, within twenty-five feet of the back door, a fleck-of-sky and his mouse-colored wife were settling the house question. After much conversation the exact position was decided upon and building operations commenced. The captain carried most of the material but the first mate insisted upon weaving altho he tucked in some twigs while the lady was out of sight. This sub rosa feat was celebrated with a series of jubilant notes which carried him in short flights from home bush to fence, thence upward to the tip of the old Baldwin tree where his vibrant song rang out for ten minutes while his consort worked steadily below.

When on the fourth day the first egg was laid, the song was shifted to a Greening tree over one hundred feet away. From this perch the happy little artist continued singing even after the young had left their nest, and when other birds were silent under the August moult. Only the Swamp Sparrow answered his rollicking bursts of happy-go-lucky notes. He joined a Scarlet Tanager and a Goldfinch in the forsythia bush one morning — a bit of the tropics in the temperate zone!