II

I had waded out into the meadow perhaps two hundred yards, leaving a dark bruised trail in the grass, when I came upon a nest of the long-billed marsh-wren.  It was a bulky house, and so overburdened its frail sedge supports that it lay almost upon the ground, with its little round doorway wide open to the sun and rain.  They must have been a young couple who built it, and quite inexperienced.  I wonder they had not abandoned it; for a crack of light into a wren’s nest would certainly addle the eggs.  They are such tiny, dusky, tucked-away things, and their cradle is so deep and dark and hidden.  There were no fatalities, I am sure, following my efforts to prop the leaning structure, though the wrens were just as sure that it was all a fatality—­utterly misjudging my motives.  As a rule, I have never been able to help much in such extremities.  Either I arrive too late, or else I blunder.

I thought, for a moment, that it was the nest of the long-billed’s cousin, the short-billed marsh-wren, that I had found—­which would have been a gem indeed, with pearly eggs instead of chocolate ones.  Though I was out for the mere joy of being out, I had really come with a hope of discovering this mousy mite of a wren, and of watching her ways.  It was like hoping to watch the ways of the “wunk.”  Several times I have been near these little wrens; but what chance has a pair of human eyes with a skulking four inches of brownish streaks and bars in the middle of a marsh!  Such birds are the everlasting despair of the naturalist, the salt of his earth.  The belief that a pair of them dwelt somewhere in this green expanse, that I might at any step come upon them, made me often forget the mosquitos.

When I reached the ridge of rose and mallow bushes, two wrens began muttering in the grass with different notes and tones from those of the long-billed.  I advanced cautiously.  Soon one flashed out and whipped back among the thick stems again, exposing himself just long enough to show me stellaris, the little short-billed wren I was hunting.

I tried to stand still for a second glimpse and a clue to the nest; but the mosquitos!  Things have come to a bad pass with the bird-hunter, whose only gun is an opera-glass, when he cannot stand stock-still for an hour.  His success depends upon his ability to take root.  He needs light feet, a divining mind, and many other things, but most of all he needs patience.  There are few mortals, however, with mosquito-proof patience—­one that would stand the test here.  Remembering a meadow in New England where stellaris nested, I concluded to wait till chance took me thither, and passed on.