After a little, madam took up the matter, uttering her angry squawk, and breaking upon my silence almost like a pistol shot. At once I forgot her mate, and though he retired to a little distance and resumed his brilliant musical performance, I did not turn my head at his beguilements. She was the business partner of the firm whose movements I wished to follow. She must, sooner or later, go to her nest, while he might deceive me for days. Indeed, I strongly suspected him of that very thing, and whenever he became bolder in approaching, or louder and more vociferous of tongue, I was convinced that it was to cover her operations. I redoubled my vigilance in watching for her, keeping my eyes open for any slight stirring of a twig, tremble of a leaf, or quick shadow near the ground that should point her out as she skulked to her nest. I had already observed that whenever she uttered her squawks he instantly burst into energetic shouts and calls. I believed it a concerted action, with the intent of drawing my attention from her movements.
On this day the disturbed little mother herself interviewed me. First she came silently under the green canopy, in plain sight, stood a moment before me, jerking up her beautiful long tail and letting it drop slowly back, and posing her mobile body in different positions; then suddenly flying close past me, she alighted on one side, and stared at me for half a dozen seconds. Then, evidently, she resolved to take me in hand. She assumed the rôle of deceiver, with all the wariness of her family; her object being, as I suppose, carefully to point out where her nest was _not_. She circled about me, taking no pains to avoid my gaze. Now she squawked on the right; then she acted "the anxious mother" on the left; this time it was from the clump of rosebushes in front that she rose hurriedly, as if that was her home; again it was from over my head, in the chokecherry-tree, that she bustled off, as if she had been "caught in the act." It was a brilliant, a wonderful performance, a thousand times more effective than trailing or any of the similar devices by which an uneasy bird mother draws attention from her brood. It was so well done that at each separate manœuvre I could hardly be convinced by my own eyes that the particular spot indicated did not conceal the little homestead I was seeking. Several times I rose triumphant, feeling sure that "now indeed I _do_ know where it is," and proceeded at once to the bush she had pointed out with so much simulated reluctance, parted the branches, and looked in, only to find myself deceived again. Her acting was marvelous. With just the properly anxious, uneasy manner, she would steal behind a clump of leaves into some retired spot admirably adapted for a chat's nest, and after a moment sneak out at the other side, and fly away near the ground, exactly as all bird-students have seen bird mothers do a thousand times.