INDIVIDUAL EXERCISES FOR SUMMER TERM 323 



Optional Study 13. A Calendar of Bird-nesting 



Nothing is more delightful to observe than the skill with 

 v/hich birds hide £.nd build their nests. A few, like those of 

 the Baltimore oriole, are htmg out in plain view, but most of 

 them are so well hidden that we can find them only by most 

 careful and unobtrusive watcliing of the coming and going 

 of the parent birds. 



This is a study for those who know how to find the nests, 

 and who know how to observe them without causing the 

 parent birds to desert them. It would better be under- 

 taken by those who have had some experience, for finding 

 the nests will require too much time on the part of a beginner. 



For record, the observations on bird-nesting may be writ- 

 ten in the columns of a cross-ruled table, in which the first 

 column is reserved for bird names, and the other coltmins 

 are reserved each for the observations of one period, with the 

 date written at the top. After the name of each bird there 

 should be written, under proper date, a brief record of the 

 building operations in which the species is engaged, as 

 searching for sites, laying foundations, building walls, inter- 

 weaving moss or feathers, completing lining, etc. Also 

 subsequent nesting phenomena, such as: first egg, last 

 egg, hatching, feeding, leaving nest, etc. Ample footnotes 

 may contain data for which there is not room in the table. 



Another form of calendar, that may oftentimes be pre- 

 ferable where one species of bird, favorable for obscr^'-ation, 

 is abtmdant, may be made up of the observations on pairs 

 of birds of a single species; the left-hand coliunn of the table 

 for record mil then be reserved for the location of the several 

 nests. 



