A Last Year's Bird's Nest 211 



same story to Francis Wilson and it looks as 

 though he believed it, for he has been telling it off 

 and on ever since. 



That birds have unchanging types of nests, 

 built in about the same general locations from 

 year to year, has long been established beyond 

 question. In fact, so generally accepted is the 

 type and the location that at a first glance we 

 might jump to the mistaken conclusion that both 

 are beyond change. There are few rules having 

 an invariable sequence and the general rule of 

 the nesting habits of birds is not an exception. 

 Their rule is changed, some in only a slight degree, 

 others radically. The Swallows have departed 

 most widely in this respect. The Barn-Swallows, 

 with their long row of nests beneath the eaves, 

 have made certainly great departure from the 

 habits of their ancestors, but not greater than 

 the Purple-Martin, from a hole in a tree to his 

 present man-made apartment house. 



Perhaps strangest of all is the Swift in the 

 chimney, the Chimney Swift, braving smoke and 

 fire and gloom profound, not to mention an odor 

 of creosote next to a Hun's gas shell. Great 

 numbers of young must be smothered and burned, 

 but still they persist, doubtless for reasons as 

 mysterious as their place of winter sojourn, which 

 is not known. The Night-Hawk, also, made a 

 stupendous change when it changed from the 



