ARCHITECT AND ARTIFICE 



eye for colour such consummate artifice. Look 

 at the red-backed shrike which is sitting on her 

 eggs in the nest in the roadside dusty hedge at 

 the present time. It is as though she strove to 

 advertise the site of her nest, so plain it is for 

 every eye, so ill-matched with its environment. 

 Still, suppose a wren has such an educated eye for 

 browns and greens, and the long-tailed titmouse 

 for lichen greys, why not the chaffinch for reds ? 

 Except that the necessity for a chaffinch to match 

 red blossom must be very rare. 



The Goldfinch's Nest 



The nicety of various birds and insects in time 

 to the minute, in place to the inch is a subject of 

 curious interest. Thousands of years ago, when 

 wild life was studied little, if at all, in detail, men 

 noted that the stork knew her seasons. But this 

 time-keeping, for a bird, is quite rude and elemen- 

 tary. The stork probably can make finer distinction 

 than that between season and season. Take an 

 English bird and a butterfly, which I have tested in 

 this and found to be precisians. The bird is the 

 goldfinch. She may have an unerring calendar of 

 the season and clock of the day, but in the goldfinch 

 it is not so much exactness in hour and season that 

 one notices as exactness in place. I have little doubt 

 that the reason why she has not built again this year 



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