WAYS OF NATURE 



rim of most nests is as true as that of a cup. The 

 circle and the sphere exist in nature; they are mo 

 ther forms and hold all other forms. They are 

 easily attained; they are spontaneous and inevit 

 able. The bird models her nest about her own 

 breast ; she turns round and round in it, and its 

 circular character results as a matter of course. 

 Angles, right lines, measured precision, so charac 

 teristic of the works of man, are rarely met with 

 in organic nature. 



Nature reaches her ends by devious paths; she 

 loiters, she meanders, she plays by the way; she 

 surely &quot; arrives,&quot; but it is always in a blind, hesitat 

 ing, experimental kind of fashion. Follow the tun 

 nels of the ants or the crickets, or of the moles and 

 the weasels, underground, or the courses of the 

 streams or the paths of the animals above ground 

 how they turn and hesitate, how wayward and 

 undecided they are! A right line seems out of the 

 question. 



The oriole often weaves strings into her nest ; 

 sometimes she binds and overhands the part of the 

 rim where she alights in going in, to make it stronger, 

 but it is always done in a hit-or-miss, childish sort 

 of way, as one would expect it to be ; the strings are 

 massed, or snarled, or left dangling at loose ends, or 

 are caught around branches ; the weaving and the 

 sewing are effective, and the whole nest is a mar 

 vel of blind skill, of untaught intelligence ; yet how 

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