BIRDS' NESTS. 



4 



(5 HE NEST OF THE MOURN- 

 ING DOVE.— The nest of 

 the Carolina or Mourning 

 Dove, which authorities place 

 on the horizontal limb of a tree, is not 

 always found in this situation, as I can 

 testify. Last year, while wandering 

 in early May through a piece of low 

 woodland in Amherst, Mass., my eye 

 was caught by a pair of well-grown 

 youngsters covered with bluish pin 

 feathers. The nest containing them — 

 a loose affair of small sticks and leaves 

 — was placed on the ground, or rather 

 on the decayed base of a stump, sur- 

 rounded by a ring of second-growth 

 birches. Immediately suspecting their 

 identity, I merged myself in the 

 landscape after the manner of bird- 

 lovers, and was soon rewarded by a 

 sight of the parent Doves, who came 

 sweeping down from a neighboring 

 tree, uttering their pensive call-note. 

 The pair had been frequent visitors 

 about the lawn and drive-way for a few 

 weeks previous. 



I have heard of another similar 

 instance of ground-nesting on the part 

 of Wild Doves. 



— Dora Read Goodale. 



WRENS— That clumsy little bunch 

 of animated feathers, the Wren, is un- 

 doubtedly the most contented of 

 dwellers on the face of the earth. In 

 country or city he is never homeless. 

 Anything hollow, with an aperture 

 large enough to admit his jaunty 

 little self is sufficient, and so long as it 

 remains undisturbed he is a happy 

 tenant. The variety of sites selected 

 by this agile little creature, is greater 

 than that of any other bird. 



It has been said that ''a Wren will 

 build in anything from a bootleg to a 

 bomb-shell." And this seems to be so. 



Many an urchin can testify to having 

 found the neat nest of the Wren in 

 his cast-off shoe or a tin can, and nests 

 filled with Wren eggs are frequent 

 finds in odd places around the battle 

 fields of the South. 



The home of a Wren, a few miles 

 from Petersburg, Va., furnishes the 

 strangest case in the matter of queer 

 habitations yet discovered. This 

 country is the site of one of the most 

 dramatic epochs of the civil war, and 

 frequently the bones of unburied 

 soldiers are picked up. Recently a 

 rusty old skull was found in which 

 one of these Wrens chose a shelter. 

 The skull, when found, was hidden in 

 a patch of shrubbery. The interior of 

 the one-time pate was carefully cleaned 

 out, and nestled in the basin of the 

 bony structure was the birth-place of 

 many a baby Wren. The skull made 

 a perfect domicile. A bullet hole in 

 the rear formed a window. An eye- 

 less socket was the exit and entrance 

 to the grim home. It is easy to 

 imagine that many a family feud had 

 its origin in the desire of others to 

 possess so secure a home. 



"I have myself," says A. W. 

 A.ithony, of San Diego, Cal., "watched 

 Cactus Wrens in New Mexico carrying 

 grass and thickening the walls of their 

 old nests in October, for winter use, 

 and have found them hidden in their 

 nests during a snowstorm in November. 

 But there is another trait in bird 

 nature that I have seen very little of 

 in print — that of building nests before 

 or after the proper season, seemingly 

 for the sole purpose of practice or 

 pastime, the out-cropping of an instinct 

 that prompts ambitious birds to build 

 out of season even though they 

 know that their work will be 

 lost." 



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