62 OUR NATIVE SONGSTERS. 



And made her bed upon its thickeat leaves : 



All the wing'd habitants of Paradise, 



Whose songs once mingled with the songs of angels, 



Wove their first nests as curiously and well 



As the wood minstrels in our evil day, 



After the labours of six thousand years, 



In which their ancestors have fail'd to add, 



To alter, or diminish anything, 



In that of which Love only knows the secret. 



And teaches every mother for herself, 



Without the power to impart it to her offspring." 



That it is instinct, and not teaching which 

 enables the bird to build its nest, we know from 

 the fact that the birds reared in cages where they 

 have never seen the usual dwellings of their 

 species, will, as far as materials and circumstances 

 admit, forai a nest like that of tlieir kind. Some 

 slight variations, according to necessity, may 

 be seen; yet, as Mr. Knapp has observed, there 

 is little deviation. " Birds," says this -writer, 

 " which build early in spring, seem to require 

 warmth and shelter for their young. Thus the 

 blackbird and tlirush line their nets with a plaster 

 of loam, perfectly excluding by these cottage-like 

 walls the keen icy gales of our opening years ; 

 yet if these are destroyed, they will build one in 

 later summer, exactly like it, at a time when cool- 

 ness would seem desirable." 



