WAYS OF NATURE 



Romanes himself or Darwin himself said he saw 

 this, one would have to believe it. Birds whose nests 

 have been plundered sometimes pull the old nest to 

 pieces and use the material, or parts of it, in build 

 ing a new nest; but I cannot believe that any pair 

 of birds ever picked up a nest containing eggs and 

 carried it off to a new place. How could they do it ? 

 With one on each side, how could they fly with the 

 nest between them ? They could not carry it with their 

 feet, and how could they manage it with their beaks ? 

 My neighbor met in the woods a black snake that 

 had just swallowed a red squirrel. Now your ro 

 mance-naturalist may take such a fact as this and 

 make as pretty a story of it as he can. He may 

 ascribe to the snake and his victim all the human 

 emotions he pleases. He may make the snake glide 

 through the tree-tops from limb to limb, and from 

 tree to tree, in pursuit of its prey : the main thing is, 

 the snake got the squirrel. If our romancer makes 

 the snake fascinate the squirrel, I shall object, be 

 cause I don t believe that snakes have this power. 

 People like to believe that they have. It would seem 

 as if this subtle, gliding, hateful creature ought to 

 have some such mysterious gift, but I have no proof 

 that it has. Every year I see the black snake robbing 

 birds -nests, or pursued by birds whose nests it has 

 just plundered, but I have yet to see it cast its fatal 

 spell upon a grown bird. Or, if our romancer says 

 that the black snake was drilled in the art of squir- 

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