OF WILD ANIMALS 



183 



The eider duck plucks from its own breast the softest of 

 feather linings for its nest. 



The grebe thoughtfully keeps its nest above high-water 

 mark by building on a floating island. 



The murre and the guillemot do their best to escape their 

 enemies of the land by building high upon inaccessible rock 

 ledges. 



The woodpecker trusts no living species save his own, and 

 drills high up into a hollow tree-trunk for his home. 



The cactus wren and crissal thrasher build in the geographi- 

 cal centres of tree choyas, so protected by 500,000 spines that 

 no hawk or owl can reach them. 



This catalogue could be extended to a great length; but why 

 pile evidence upon evidence! 



It cannot be correct to assume that the nesting activities 

 of birds are based upon instinct alone. That theory would be 

 untenable. New conditions call for independent thought, and 

 originality of treatment. If the ancestral plans and specifica- 

 tions could not be varied, then every bird would have to build 

 a nest just "such as mother used to make," or have no brood. 



All bird students know full well how easily the robin, the 

 wren, the hawk and the owl change locations and materials to 

 meet new and strange conditions. A robin has been known 

 to build on the running-board of a switch-engine in a freight 

 yard, and another robin built on the frame of the iron gate of an 

 elephant yard. A wren will build in a tin can, a piece of drain 

 tile, a lantern, a bird house or a coat pocket, just as blithely as 

 its grandmother built in a grape arbor over a kitchen door. 

 All this is the hall mark of New Thought. 



Whenever children go afield in bird country, they are con- 

 stantly on the alert for fresh discoveries and surprises in bird 

 architecture. Interest in the nest-building ingenuity and 

 mechanical skill of birds is perpetual. The variety is almost 

 endless. Dull indeed is the mind to which a cunningly con- 

 trived nest does not appeal. Tell the boys that it is all right 



