238 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



it regularly for years during the spring and summer 

 months for Wrens' nests. I went round after dark 

 with my bull's-eye lantern, and found each feather- 

 lined cavity tenanted by a male House Sparrow. I 

 also found another male and two females, and a 

 Wren, in holes not lined with anything. On the 

 same farmstead I watched a number of Sparrows to 

 bed in some holes they had made for themselves in 

 the end of a hayrick, and upon investigation, one of 

 these contained a lining of feathers, although I had 

 good reason for believing that it had never been 

 used as a nest. It seems strange that one 

 member of a species should make for itself such 

 comfortable quarters, whilst another is so indifferent 

 to the most intense cold as to sit in a leafless 

 hedgerow all night. The fact is, that, although the 

 animal world is largely governed by hereditary 

 intelligence, there is really no such dead level of 

 unreasoning instinct abroad as is popularly supposed. 

 The lower animals differ as much from each other 

 in the same species relatively as men and women; 

 but these differences are often so subtle, and their 

 habits in a wild state so little known, that they 

 escape all but the very closest observers. 



My investigations lead me to believe that the 

 majority of male House Sparrows take to the open 

 hedges and trees to roost in whilst their mates 

 are brooding; however, a few of them are true to 

 their old quarters in holes under eaves, thatch, 

 and in ricks. 



Tits roost under thatch, and in holes in the 

 sides of ricks, and in one or two instances we have 

 met with them in old Wrens' nests. I have heard 

 it said that the male Long-tailed Tit sleeps in the 

 nest with the female, but unfortunately I have 

 been prevented from putting this assertion to the 



