THE ANIMAL MIND 



the entrance. But this is exactly what the bluebirds 

 did. As I have elsewhere described, I had pulled 

 down the stub that held their nest and young, not 

 knowing there was a nest there; and then on dis- 

 covering my mistake had set the stub up again 

 twelve or fifteen feet from where I had found it. 

 Presently the mother bird came with food in her 

 bill, and alighted on a limb a few feet above the 

 spot where the trunk of the tree holding her nest 

 had been, and where, doubtless, she was in the 

 habit of alighting. She must have seen at once that 

 her house was gone, but if she did, the fact made no 

 impression upon her. 



Quite undisturbed, she dropped down to the 

 point in the vacant space where the entrance to her 

 nest used to be. She hovered there a moment and 

 then, apparently greatly bewildered, flew back to 

 the perch above. She waited there a moment, 

 peering downward, and then tried it again. Could 

 she not see that her house was gone? But the force 

 of habit was stronger with her than any free intelli- 

 gence she might possess. She had always found the 

 nest there and it must be there still. An animal's 

 reflexes are not influenced by the logic of the situa- 

 tion. Down she came again and hovered a moment 

 at the point of the vanished nest, vainly seeking the 

 entrance. This movement she repeated over and 

 over. I have no doubt that she came each time to 

 the precise spot in the air where her treasures had 

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