VII 

 DEVIOUS PATHS 



nnHERE is no better type or epitome of wild na- 

 I ture than the bird s-nest something built, 

 and yet as if it grew, a part of the ground, or of 

 the rock, or of the branch upon which it is placed; 

 beginning so coarsely, so irregularly, and ending 

 so finely and symmetrically; so unlike the work of 

 hands, and yet the result of a skill beyond hands; 

 and when it holds its complement of eggs, how pleas 

 ing, how suggestive! 



The bird adapts means to an end, and yet so dif 

 ferently from the way of man, an end of which it 

 does not know the value or the purpose. We know 

 it is prompted to it by the instinct of reproduc 

 tion. When the woodpecker in the fall excavates a 

 lodge in a dry limb, we know he is prompted to it 

 by the instinct of self-preservation, but the birds 

 themselves obey the behests of nature without know 

 ledge. 



A bird s-nest suggests design, and yet it seems 



almost haphazard ; the result of a kind of madness, 



yet with method in it. The hole the woodpecker 



drills for its cell is to the eye a perfect circle, and the 



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