Here she hovered on the wing a
second or two, looking for something that was not
there, and then returned to the perch she had just
left, apparently not a little disturbed. She hammered
the beetle rather excitedly upon the limb
a few times, as if it were in some way at fault,
then dropped down to try for her nest again.
Only vacant air there! She hovers and hovers,
her blue wings flickering in the checkered light;
surely that precious hole MUST be there; but no,
again she is baffled, and again she returns to her
perch, and mauls the poor beetle till it must be
reduced to a pulp. Then she makes a third
attempt, then a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth,
till she becomes very much excited. ``What could
have happened? Am I dreaming? Has that beetle
hoodooed me?'' she seems to say, and in her dismay
she lets the bug drop, and looks bewilderedly
about her. Then she flies away through the
woods, calling. ``Going for her mate,'' I said to
Ted. ``She is in deep trouble, and she wants
sympathy and help.''
In a few minutes we heard her mate answer,
and presently the two birds came hurrying to the
spot, both with loaded beaks. They perched upon
the familiar limb above the site of the nest, and
the mate seemed to say, ``My dear, what has
happened to you? I can find that nest.'' And he
dived down, and brought up in the empty air just
as the mother had done.
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