CHAPTER III 

 BIRD ARCHITECTURE 



JUST as surely as the peoples of the earth have 

 each a characteristic style of architecture, a Hotten- 

 tot hut or an Indian tepee, a Moorish mosque, a 

 Gothic cathedral or a Chinese pagoda being stamped 

 on its face with the racial individuality of the 

 designer, so the humblest home of the birds about 

 us tells at once to the practised eye the species of 

 the feathered architect who made it. The " dang- 

 ling cup of felt" is quite as characteristic of the 

 Baltimore oriole, for example, as the temple with 

 its rows of profusely ornamented commas- was of the 

 Corinthian Greek. And the marvel is that, guided 

 only by instinct, the birds should continue to repeat 

 generation after generation the special architecture 

 of their ancestors without taking the pains to study 

 a finished model or standing by to watch the expert 

 masters of their craft at work. For birds reared in 

 captivity build as good homes and by precisely the 

 same model as the wild birds of their species. Nor 

 does any bird servilely copy the nest of one not of 

 his own tribe. It would be difficult to name the 

 style of architecture to which most of our modern 

 suburban villas belong (unless we call it the Con- 

 glomerate) ; but every farmer's boy can tell at a 

 glance the robin's mud-plastered nest from the song 

 sparrow's or bobolink's grassy cradle, Primitive- 



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