250 FRANCIS H. HERRICK 



to the cribbing timbers of an unfinished well seven or eight feet 

 below the surface, and of another which rested on a bare rock. 

 It would surely be interesting to know whether the habit of 

 nesting low, implied in these and similar cases which could be 

 given would outlast the season, but on this point we can offer 

 nothing at present. 



The e\idence that certain individual robins, swallows, or blue- 

 birds seek the neighborhood of man or noisy situations for the 

 protection thus secured, is probably delusive. As we have said, 

 they come to places inhabited by man chiefly for food, and that 

 they learn to endure noise and disturbance through association 

 is not to be doubted. The protection thus gained is incidental, 

 and wherever the domestic cat reigns it can be but slight at best, 

 and certainly not greater than in a more primitive environment. 

 In any case we should need to know the conditions under which 

 the nest was started, for a robin or bluebird will begin to build 

 about machinery or on the timbers of an unfinished dwelling 

 when the workmen are away, with perhaps a quiet Sunday 

 intervening, and then by instinct and by association hold to 

 the chosen spot in spite of all ordinary obstacles. Many cases 

 are constantly reported in which birds have chosen the most 

 extraordinary and anomalous positions for their nests, the 

 choice being possibly made under the conditions intimated. 

 The following account will illustrate the class of nests to which 

 I refer. 



.A bluebird's nest was discovered by workmen near my home 

 in Cleveland Heights Village, Ohio, while engaged in taking 

 down the framework of a sewer trench, on May 19, 1910; at this 

 time it contained three young nearly able to fly. This singular 

 nest was placed in a narrow pocket of the framing, and but a 

 few feet from an overhead track, on which for weeks a line of 

 suspended dumping cars had been nmning back and forth dur- 

 ing working hours, and with what noise and jarring can be easily 

 understood; for over a month besides it had been subjected to 

 repeated danger from dynamite blasts which showered stones 

 all about it from the trench below ; meantime with the advancing 

 work of construction it had travelled along the street for about 

 the distance of a city block, and all the time close to the grinding 

 racket of a steam engine with its screeching whistle, and to the 

 laborers who, in operating their cars, passed directly under it. 



