The Audubon Societies 



237 



species. It is almost beyond the realm of possibility to have a Yellow-breasted 

 Chat or a Cuckoo or even a Catbird behave in such a manner. 



Before leaving the subject of nesting we ought to try to answer the question 

 of why birds build nests anyway. Some we know still lay their eggs on the 

 ground without any nest whatsoever, and they manage to persist or else we 

 would not have any Nighthawks or Whip-poor-wills. The same is true of 

 many of the sea-birds like the Auks and Murres. At the other extreme are 

 the Orioles and the Weaver Birds that weave such elaborate nests. Between 



TURNING THE EGGS IS A NECESSARY DUTY ACCOMPANYING INCUBATION 

 Here is a Florida Gallinule attending to this requirement 



the two we find all gradations of nest structure from those that merely scoop 

 out a little depression to keep the eggs from rolling, like the Killdeer, or those 

 that add a few grasses by way of a lining, like the Spotted Sandpiper, to those 

 that build rather elaborate domed nests on the ground like the Meadowlark 

 and the Ovenbird. 



Of the birds that have raised their nests above ground to escape floods or 

 terrestrial enemies, there are some that merely lift them by building a platform 

 of dead leaves, like the Veery, or the Rails and Gallinules in the marsh; others 

 build crude platforms of sticks in trees or bushes, barely sufficient to keep the 

 eggs from rolling to the ground. Such are the nests of the Herons, the Mourning 



