200 THE STORY OF THE BIRDS. 
things. But close akin to these latter are the garden 
and bower birds, already mentioned as ornamenting 
their bowers and love promenades with bright objects. 
These use bright objects sensibly, but the magpies, 
ete., show their kinship in the little vestige of know- 
ing how to steal and hide them only, but not how to 
use them. 
We have already seen how a bird’s building habits 
may show something of where it originated, whether 
north or south. 
Enough has been said to show that every glance 
out of the window may be interesting, and that every 
vestige of either habit or structure is like an island 
now—a mere point above the surface, which indicates 
the isthmus, long since sunken out of sight, that once 
lay perhaps between the two great continents of Then 
and Now. 

