18 



THE OSPREY. 



ious to settle the question as to whether 

 or not he was mated or a bachelor. He 

 was equally assiduous in trying- to steal 

 into either' g-ourd, but from the fact that 

 I once caug-ht him in the unoccupied 

 g-ourd and saw the other chase him 

 away towards the usual resort, I suspect 

 that he, too, was simply trying to build an 

 extra nest, and perhaps had no other 

 g-ood situation near his real home. His 

 constancy in g-oing and coming- from one 

 place, however, was all the evidence that 

 I saw of his being probably a nesting 

 bird. He gave it up finally as a bad 

 cause before the local mother brought off 

 her first brood, but still so long- as I went 

 beneath the unoccupied gourd the other 

 male would come and scold me. But 

 soon, while the mother was feeding the 

 young- in the rose bush beneath my win- 

 dow, he was singing around the Martin 

 box, and before I realized it, a second 

 brood was here well on its way. Now 

 the male at once lost all interest, so far 

 as I could discover in either of the gourds. 

 I tested his temper by climbing- up to 

 them when he was singing in plain sight 

 but he would not scold me. 



Now the inference that 1 drew from 

 this summer study, was, finally that_ the 

 purpose of so many nests and the bird's 

 jealousy was of course a selfish one, but 

 one looking- to the later broods. These 

 birds often bring- out their brood and the 

 nests are all often, if not usually, in the 

 same vicinity. I do not think that the 

 number of broods is predetermined be- 

 yond the second, but the very early 

 brooding- of the mother while her first 

 young- are weak of wing- and require at- 

 tention, would make an adjacent locality 

 convenient. 



Ag-ain I have known this nest-building 

 to g-o on after the female beg-an setting-, 

 and I have been informed of one well 

 noted instance where a second nest was 

 built exclusively by the male — his sing-- 

 ing identifying- him. His mate never 

 came but once to look at this nest, seem- 

 ing-ly rejecting- it — after her first brood 

 was out, so that many of our birds' nests 

 nicij be truly called "cock nests" also as 

 well as those in Eng-land ; but they are 

 cock nests built with a view of submitting- 

 them to feminine choice, and the fastidi- 

 ousness may be ( and doubtless for the 

 latter broods is) finally on the feminine 

 side. Other observers note that the 

 female build all the nests, but I think 

 there is the pre -determination by 

 both to hold these places as elig-ible loca- 

 tions in case of future emergencies, and 

 of course other elements of selfishness 

 enter as incidental. I feel that if it had 

 been the purpose of these birds to raise a 

 third brood the male would still have 

 shown an interest in the unused g-ourd, 

 unless it may have been emphatically 

 rejected by his mate. My slight observa- 

 tion is that there is none of this extra 

 nest-building- in preparing- for the second 

 or third broods, but it may be also that 

 this itch for building- in the spring- is 

 simply an overflow of spirits and energy 

 as is maintained by some to be the mo- 

 tive of song-. The fact that the Marsh 

 Wrens do not subsequently use their 

 extra nests, as has been asserted, if true, 

 would confine my hypothesis to the House 

 Wren only, and we still would have no 

 general solution that will apply to the 

 family the world over. 



Rambles Around Quiver Lake, 



BY P. M. SILLOWAY, KOODHOUSE, ILL. 

 (First Paper— Continued.) 



SOON we enter the inner circle of 

 flags, where the water is corres- 

 pondingly deeper, and where our 

 progress is more impeded by the g-rowth 

 of moss and lily stems. Here we find the 

 homes of the g-rebes, little circular 

 mounds of decaying- veg-etable matter 

 anchored among the flag- stems, with the 

 eg-g-s loosely covered by a mass of shred- 

 like matter, apparently to deceive a nov- 



ice like me. The shy owners are out 

 on the open water, feeding among- the 

 lily-pads and keeping well out of view 

 of any wandering- ornithologist like my- 

 self. There are other more tang-ible 

 evidences of life, however, for frequently 

 we startled a Least Bittern, which spring-s 

 loosely into the air, like its larg-e rela- 

 tive, but settles itself more quickly and 

 flies almost straig-htaway or in a slow 



