\ INTELLIGENCE IN BIKDS. 119 



after leading you a '' wild goose chase," and at a suffi- 

 cient distance from the nest, how suddenly and easily 

 she flies away out of reach of all danger. This is always 

 the ruse of many of the ground nesters, the sparrows, 

 plovers, whip-poor-Avill, partridge and many others. 



Jane Taylor, in an article on the difference between 

 man and inferior animals, says : " Man has reason, ani- 

 mals only instinct ; man makes mistakes, animals never 

 do ; animals never make improvements," and continues, 

 " Who ever saw a bird puzzling its head over its unfin- 

 ished nest ? " Had she been an observing naturalist she 

 might on many occasions have seen just this. Birds 

 often find great difficulty in obtaining sufficient materi- 

 als of which they are most fond, and may have to go a 

 long way to get enough of the soft fabrics with which 

 to finish the nest, thus delaying the completion for sev- 

 eral days. 



Sometimes the twigs to which it is fastened prove too 

 weak for its support, and then the ingenuity of the birds 

 comes into play to remedy the defect. I have seen them 

 tie two branches together, that were spreading apart, 

 and make them fast to a limb above them and then finish 

 the nest. Within a week I have seen the nest of an 

 oriole canted over by the breaking of a limb caused by 

 high wind; the birds, instead of forsaking the nest, 

 somewhere secured a piece of white tape three or four 

 feet long, and with this fastened the broken branch 

 securely to another limb. Birds that build early in the 

 season, w^iile the weather is cold, make much more sub- 

 stantial nests than those that build later. The chipping 



