1 6 Twelve Months With 



employ mud in their nest building, frequently 

 wait a day or two after the nest is finished before 

 laying their eggs, which action might be attributed 

 to instinctive solicitude for the future family, but 

 this practice is not peculiar to birds who use mud 

 in their nests, so that the delay is more likely due 

 in each case to the fact that the egg is not mature. 



Mr. Burroughs relates a story of a creeping 

 warbler whose egg became ripe before the nest 

 was finished. After excavating the site for the 

 nest, the bird laid the egg, and then finished the 

 nest over it. So that if instinct sometimes errs 

 upon the one side and fails to prompt the bird 

 to build its nest in time, it may easily err on the 

 other side and urge nest building too soon. 



But, to return to our nest on the window 

 ledge, whatever the reason may have been for 

 her four days' absence, at the expiration of that 

 time the female robin returned to the nest, and 

 then laid one egg a day until four were in the 

 nest, and as I write she is faithfully warming the 

 nest and its eggs, and clamorously protesting when 

 any one appears at the window, or at any window 

 in the vicinity. 



This experience of the robin's nest on the win- 

 dow ledge reminds me of Wordsworth's lines on 

 the robin at his casement window: 



"Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay, 



And at my casement sing, 

 Though it should prove a farewell lay 

 And this our parting spring." 



