120 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 



The birds, or at any rate many of them, seem 

 to welcome the coming of mankind, and to make 

 friends with him at once, and occasionally to fol- 

 low him into wider countries. Thus the swift, the 

 barn-swallow, and the eave-swallow have aban- 

 doned in the east their habits of nesting in hol- 

 low trees and upon rocky cliffs or clay-banks, and 

 now make their homes altogether in the chimneys 

 of houses and under the eaves and roofs of barns 

 and outhouses. The phoebe-bird so generally 

 chooses the exposed timbers of bridges that it is 

 more widely known as the bridge-pewee than by 

 any other name ; yet it as often places its adobe 

 cabin on the beam of a shed or porch, as if seek- 

 ing human company. The grouse, quail, crow, 

 and some other birds have moved westward with 

 the advancing migration of agriculture; and every- 

 where, no doubt, the total of singing-birds has 

 been greatly increased by the civilizing of the 

 land. Thus we make daily observation of most 

 of the birds, and only need to attend to them more 

 minutely to become aware of the presence of those 

 kinds more rare or occasional. 



With the mammals the case is different. Almost 

 the only kinds, not voluntarily domesticated, that 

 have attached themselves to mankind, are the rats 

 and mice cosmopolitan pests, presumably of 

 Asiatic origin, which have now spread all over 

 the world. Many beasts, as the big game and 

 fiercer carnivores, have almost or quite disappeared 



