wood thrush frequently weaves a fragment of newspaper or a white rag into 

 the foundation of its nest. "Evil communications corrupt good manners." 

 The newspaper and the rag-bag unsettle the wits of the birds. The phoebe- 

 bird is capable of this kind of mistake or indiscretion. All the past genera- 

 tions of her tribe have built upon natural and, therefore, neutral sites, usually 

 under shelving and overhanging rocks, and the art of adapting the nest to its 

 surroundings, blending it with them, has been highly developed. But phoebe 

 now frequently builds under our sheds and porches, where, so far as conceal- 

 ment is concerned, a change of material, say from moss to dry grass or shreds 

 of bark, would be an advantage to her; but she departs not a bit from the 

 family traditions; she uses the same woodsy mosses, which in some cases, 

 especially when the nest is placed upon unevenly sawed timber, makes her 

 secret an open one to all eyes. 



It does indeed often look as if the birds had very little sense. Think of a 

 bluebird, or an oriole, or a robin, or a jay, fighting for hours at a time its own 

 image as reflected in a pane of glass; quite exhausting itself in its fury to de- 

 molish its supposed rival ! Yet I have often witnessed this little comedy. It 

 is another instance of how the arts of our civilization corrupt and confuse the 

 birds. It may be that in the course of many generations the knowledge of 

 glass will get into their blood, and they will cease to be fooled by it, as they 

 may also in time learn what a poor foundation the newspaper is to build upon. 

 The ant or the bee could not be fooled by the glass in that way for a moment. 



Have the birds sense, as distinguished from instinct? Is a change of 

 habits to meet new conditions, or the taking advantage of accidental circum- 

 stances, an evidence of sense? How many birds have taken advantage of the 

 protection afforded by man in building their nests! How many of them 

 build near paths and along roadsides, to say nothing of those 

 that come to our dwellings! Even the quail seems to prefer the. 

 borders of the highway to the open fields. I have chanced upon only 

 three quails' nests, and tiiese were all by the roadside. One season a 

 scarlet tanager, that had failed with her first nest in the woods, came to try 

 again in a little cherry tree that stood in the open, a few feet from my cabin, 

 where I could almost touch the nest with my hand as I passed. But in my 

 absence again she came to grief, some marauder, probably a red squirrel, tak- 

 ing her eggs. It was clearly an act of judgment that caused this departure 

 in the habits of a wood bird. Will her failure in this case cause her to lose 

 faith in the protective influence of the shadow of a human dwelling? I hope 

 not. I have known the turtledove to make a similar move, occupying an old 

 robin's nest near my neighbor's cottage. 



It would be interesting to know how long our chimney-swifts saw the 

 open chimney stacks of the early settlers beneath them before they aban- 

 doned the hollow trees in the woods and entered them for nesting and ro(ist- 



JD 



