BIRDS’ NESTS 
| feeling of intimate acquaintance and 
Bom) peculiar interest as is gained by fol- 
lowing even the most familiar species, like the 
robin or sparrow, through the short period of 
nesting ; and this probably for the reason that 
this brief annual experience in their lives calls 
into action the most subtle, personal, and charm- 
ing qualities of their nature. 
A bird, like a human being, is best known, 
after all, in the intimacies of its own home. 
Here it finds a warmer response from our own 
nature than even in the glow and ecstacy of its 
most delicious song. Here it is most nearly 
human, and affords most marked analogies of 
human wisdom, patience, solicitude and _af- 
fection. And yet it is in the intricate and 
almost inaccessible details of their short fam- 
ily life that we still have most to learn con- 
cerning birds—a fund of problems giving infi- 

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