"He looks like a little Thrush," said Olive, "except that he is too green on the back, and the stripe on his head is of a dingy gold color. That is why he is often called the 'Golden-crowned Thrush,' though he is not a Thrush at all, but one of the American Warblers, and the crown is more the color of copper, than like the gold on the Golden-crowned Kinglet's head. Perhaps the Kinglet is called after new, clean gold, and this 'Thrush' after old dusty gold."
All this time Rap had been looking intently at the Warbler without saying a word; then he said suddenly: "Why, it's the bird that builds the little house-nest on the ground in the river woods! The nest that is roofed all over and has a round hole in one side for a door! I'm so glad I know his name, for it isn't in my part of the Nuttall book and the miller doesn't know what he is called. Is he named Ovenbird because he has a door in one side of his nest like an oven?"
"Yes, Rap, the nest is shaped like the kind of oven that Indians used. Tell us about the one you found."
"I was sitting on the bank where it goes down a little to the river, and the ground there was humpy with bunches of grass. A little bird like this Warbler ran from between two of the grass humps and picked about on the ground for a minute and then ran back. I thought he had gone into a hole, but pretty soon he came out again and flew up through the bushes to a tall tree a little way off. He went out to the end of a long branch and began to call—soft at first and then very loud, as if his throat would split before he ended. It was a very big noise for such a little bird."
"Did he seem to say 'Teacher, TEACHER, TEACHER'?" asked the Doctor, who knew John Burroughs very well.
"Yes, he kept calling exactly that way. Then when he stopped, I looked for the hole in the ground where he came from. I felt round a little, and then I lay down on the bank and looked up hill at the place to try if I could find it that way. Then I saw a place where the grass and leaves were made into a sort of roof between the grass humps, and in the middle of this was a smooth round hole. I put my finger in and another bird, just like the first, flew out, and I saw that there were eggs there; so I drove a stick in the ground to mark the place, and went away.
"The miller said it must be a field-mouse's nest that some birds had stolen. But in the fall I took the nest home and I saw it was a real bird's nest, all woven round of strong grass with finer kinds for a lining; and there were dead leaves on the outside, so that the top looked like all the rest of the ground. I had often heard that loud singing before, but this was the first time I had a good look at the bird and his nest, and the miller won't believe now that it's a bird's nest either."
"What trade does the Ovenbird belong to?" asked Dodo. "He ought to be a baker if he lives in an oven."
"He is a Ground Gleaner and a Tree Trapper," said the Doctor, while the children laughed merrily at Dodo's idea of a baker bird.
The Ovenbird