NESTING-TIME 



N THE course of our excursions among the 

 birds we have had occasion to peer into more 

 than one Httle sylvan home, Hfting the leaves 

 of privacy which embower it, for a friendly 

 inspection. Let us now take a general sur- 

 vey of these wonderful little architects at their 

 work, and of the treasures which their nests contain. It is a 

 popular impression that the nest of a bird is the result of blind 

 instinct, constructed without the exercise of any considerable 

 degree of choice or intelligence. However, no one who has 

 ever watched the parent birds at their work would be willing 

 to accept such a view, I am sure. Hie scrutiny with which 

 the builders inspect every available site, the judgment used in 

 placing the nest where it will escape detection, the complexity 

 of the work, all preclude the possibility of instinct playing a 

 very important part in the matter. 



But why, then, do you ask, is the oriole's nest always 

 swung from a slender bough, while the home of the meadow- 

 lark is invariably upon the ground? Professor Alfred Russell 

 Wallace has suggested the answer to this, substantially as fol- 

 lows: For the same reason that the Esquimaux build a dome- 

 shaped hut of ice blocks, and the South Sea Islanders a shelter 

 of thatched straw; that the inhabitants of Mexico use adobe 



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