4:6 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



fence-rail, or the eggs may sometimes be laid on the ruins 

 of a last year's nest, as in a case I once noticed where three 

 dove's eggs were laid in an old cat-bird's nest, around the 

 ruins of which the snow w r as yet unmelted. On the plains 

 I have seen many times how these birds scratch a few grass- 

 stalks together on the ground, for want of a better place. 

 It is not to be wondered at that pigeons have been easi- 

 ly domesticated, when they accommodate themselves so 

 readily to any exigency in rearing their young. However 

 placed, this nest is a slight platform of twigs, just suffi- 

 cient to hold the two or three eggs ; or, if the top of a 

 stump, or the ground, be chosen as the site, it is not un- 

 common to find simply a little rim, like a tinker's dam, 

 built around the eggs, which themselves rest on the bare 

 surface of the stump. 



Another early and familiar visitor to the gardens is the 

 chipping sparrow, or " chippy," its delicate voice coming to 

 us from among the first blossoms of the lilac. It is also 

 called the " hair-bird," because its nest is composed mainly 

 of horse -hairs twined into a flat little basket of slender 

 twigs and rootlets. But this is not a good name ; the scien- 

 tific designation, "social sparrow," fits the bird better, for 

 it seeks to be social with man, and places its home wiiere 

 every boy and girl of the family may look in at the front 



