22O Twelve Months With 



"Whose habitations in the tree tops even 

 Are half-way houses on the road to heaven," 



are all dainty creations and usually difficult to 

 find, because they are often placed high in the 

 treetops. 



The instinct for nest building persists in caged 

 birds, who sometimes in spring make pitiful 

 attempts to collect material about the cage for 

 making a nest. Sarah Orne Jewett writes of her 

 caged canary: 



"She gathers piteous bits and shreds, 



This solitary, mateless thing, 

 To patient build again the nest 



So rudely scattered spring by spring." 



Any one who has observed this phenomenon, I 

 dare say, would thenceforth find it difficult if not 

 impossible to deprive a bird of its liberty. Riley, 

 in humorous dialect, says it is ridiculous to do 

 so when the woods and fields are full of birds: 



"Jes' the idy, now, o'layin' 

 Out your money, and a-payin' 



Fer a wilier-cage and bird, 

 When the medder-larks is wingin' 

 Round you, and the woods is ringin' 

 With the beautifullest singin' 



That a mortal ever heard." 



The locations chosen by different species for 

 their nests are about as various as the styles in 



