WAYS OF NATURE 



but his sagacity fails him when interpreting the 

 action of the jay in roosting in an exposed place 

 after it had been given its liberty. He thinks this 

 showed how little instinct can be relied on, and 

 how much the bird needed parental instruction. 

 Could he not see that the artificial life of the bird 

 in the cage had demoralized its instincts, and that 

 acquired habits had supplanted native tendencies ? 

 The bird had learned to be unafraid in the cage, 

 and why should it be afraid out of the cage ? This 

 reminds me of a letter from a correspondent : he had 

 a tame crow that was not afraid of a gun ; therefore 

 he concluded that the old crows must instill the fear 

 of guns into their young ! Why should the crow be 

 afraid of a gun, if it had learned not to be afraid 

 of the gunner ? 



I have seen a young chickadee fly late in the day 

 from the nest in the cavity of a tree straight to a 

 pear-tree, where it perched close to the trunk and 

 remained unregarded by its parents till next morn 

 ing. But no doubt its parents had given it minute 

 directions before it left the nest how to fly and 

 where to perch ! 



That animals learn by experience in a limited way 

 is very certain. Yet that old birds build better nests 

 or sing better than young ones it would be hard 

 to prove, though it seems reasonable that it should 

 be so. 



Rarely does one see nests of the same species of 

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