May, 1909 A PROBLEM IN INDETERMINATES 89 started and doesn't find anything, will keep going. After awhile-I found myself far beyond the locality I had spotted for the Hawk's nest, but as it seemed I ought to stumble on a nest of Grouse, or something, I kept going. Nests of the Lark Bunting were there in plenty, but as I had room in my collecting box for only a good set of Hawk or Grouse I didn't bother the Buntings. Once I startled a female Bunting from a nest with seven eggs, and when I saw five males at once settle in the bush in which she took refuge, I was prone to question the code of ethics governing a Bunting household. Then I thought how queer it was that nature is so capricious; if Lark Bunting eggs were quite rare and worth two dol- lars each in exchange, more than likely the Bunting's nests would be located in the tops of the highest pine trees on the hillsides, and I could never find one in a day's travel. It seems strange that Mr. Emerson omitted this little point from his essay on ' 'Compensation. ' ' As I was saying, presently a little patch of weeds caught my eye, over on the bench. It was just a little patch, no more than eight or ten feet in diameter. Disappointed and leg weary, I brusht threateningly against it to alarm any possi- ble tenant; and what happened? A great cloud of grayish brown feathers floated almost into my face from between my feet, and drifted noiselessly away over the bench. My first impression was that the entire patch of shrubbery had taken wing in my startled imagination. Then all the catalog of owls rusht thru my mental vision, and I realized that for the first time in my life--the first time, mind you--I had chanced on the nest of the Short-eared Owl. Yes, I, too, was once a barefoot boy, but I did not experience all the pleasures of life in that limited boy- hood; there was something left that had just fallen to my lot--a new experience in bird nesting. No doubt some of you who are getting as gray-headed as I am can imagine something of my exultation as I peered at the opening in the shrubbery at my feet. Eight eggs, large and pearly and shiny--no, that was all in my imagina- tion, for as I examined them I found them dirty and blood stained, yet I knew that a little water would remedy all that. Did I leave them in that damp opening, Ht?ST 01? THt? SHORT-t?ARED OWL
