132 BIRDS'-NESTS. 



alighting on a tree, wiped its bill on the 

 bark and moss. This seems to be the order 

 all d a y, carrying in and carrying out. I 

 watched the birds for an hour, while my 

 companions were taking their turn in explor- 

 ing the lay of the land around us, and noted 

 110 variation in the programme. It would 

 be curious to know if the young are fed and 

 waited upon in regular order, and how, 

 amid the darkness and the crowded state of 

 the apartment, the matter is so neatly man- 

 aged. But ornithologists are all silent upon 

 the subject. 



This practice of the birds is not so un- 

 common as it might at first seem. It is, in- 

 deed, almost an invariable rule among all 

 land birds. With woodpeckers and kindred 

 species, and with birds that burrow in the 

 ground, as bank swallows, kingfishers, etc., 

 it is a necessity. The accumulation of the 

 excrement in the nest would prove most 

 fatal to the young. 



But even among birds that neither bore 

 nor mine, but which build a shallow nest on 

 the branch of a tree or upon the ground, as 

 the robin, the finches, the buntings, etc., the 

 ordure of the young is removed to a distance 

 by the parent bird. When the robin is seen 



