It was a hot night. The mosquitoes bit steadily, and the feather-bed was like a furnace seven times heated. All night long a whip-poor-will called his name under our window over three million times. The Banker said he counted the notes. Finally, after hours and hours of agony, I fell into a troubled sleep and was instantly awakened by the Banker, who said it was time to get up. We breakfasted on what remained of the corpse of the supper of the night before, which we found on the table. A few moments later I was morosely moving an alleged boat through the mists of the morass.
Without further alliteration, let me chronicle what paid for all the toil, hardships and privations of the trip. It was the sight of a bird of burnished gold flashing through the curling mists. "Tweet, tweet, tweet," he called ringingly as he flew. The note reminded me somewhat of the loud song of the Kentucky warbler, and the Banker, of the note of the solitary sandpiper. Every now and then we caught tantalizing glimpses of this warbler, which never by any chance stands still, but flits here and there among the trees over the water. From the trees I constantly heard squeaking notes, apparently of young birds. They sounded everywhere, and I decided that the whole marsh must be full of nests. The Banker laughed at my ignorance and told me that this was the note of the blue-gray gnatcatchers--"like a mouse with a toothache," as Chapman describes it. With great difficulty I caught a glimpse of the tiny bird here and there among the tree-tops, and saw the two long feathers of its tail, and had a glimpse of the gray and white of its plumage. Some weeks before, the Banker had found down there one of its rare and beautiful nests, like a large hummingbird's nest, lined with down and thatched on the outside with lichens, and fastened to a high bough.
That day I found the first nest of the prothonotary warbler. This bird uses deserted woodpeckers' nests in dead trees set in marshes, so it was necessary to paddle around to every dead tree which showed a hole. I finally saw a little red-birch stub sticking up in the corner of the marsh, and rowing over to it, noticed a small hole in its side. Picking away the bark, I made it larger and a piece of the fresh green moss, from which the nest of the prothonotary warbler is always built, showed itself. Imbedded in the moss was a vivid orange-yellow feather, which could belong to no other bird. The nest was just built and contained no eggs.