12 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



diate possession of the nest, and used it as a 

 dormitory until spring; but while the buds in the 

 orchard and woodland still imprisoned the blos- 

 soms, and before the first swallow had made its 

 appearance, my little captives destroyed the bird's 

 nest and gnawed off a portion of the window cur- 

 tain that accidently fell against the cage, and with 

 the material thus obtained they built a globular 

 house on the green sod at the bottom of their cage. 

 In the subcellar of the new dwelling an interesting 

 family of little ones was born. The instinct, rea- 

 son, or automatism of the mice taught them that 

 the bird's nest would be too small for a larger 

 family, and with commendable common sense they 

 erected a more commodious, though less poetic, 

 abode on the ground. 



The ingenuity that the deer mice display in 

 adapting and remodeling such shelter as they hap- 

 pen to find, to suit their own wants, is to me more 

 wonderful than the common instinct which teaches 

 the Baltimore oriole to reproduce the same nest 

 year after year automatically like the bees when 

 they build their geometrical honey cells. 



