72 NESTING SITE 



an influence. The young of Herons, Spoonbills, Anhingas, Cormorants 

 and Ibises are altricial, hence require the protection of a more or less 

 inaccessible nest during the comparatively long period they are con- 

 fined to it. On the other hand, the Whip-poor-will is, in feeding habit, 

 a bird of the air, but the eggs are laid on the ground, the pracocial 

 young apparently not requiring the shelter of a nest. 



Exceptions to the rule that exclusively terrestrial feeding birds 

 usually nest upon the ground have already been referred to under 

 Herons, Ibises, Spoonbills, etc., whose gregariousness in connection 

 with the condition of the young at birth evidently demands an arboreal 

 site; but the reasons why such terrestrial birds as the Quail and Grouse, 

 Snipe and Plover or the Loons and Grebes nest on the ground are 

 obvious. It is equally to be expected that birds, like the Catbird, which 

 live among bushes, should nest among them, and that arboreal species, 

 like Tanagers, should nest in trees, though we shall always find inter- 

 esting variations or departures from the normal; as, for example, the 

 nesting of the Solitary Sandpiper in the old homes of such arboreal 

 species as the Robin, or of the Wood Duck and Golden-eye in trees, 

 while such purely individual variations as a Wild Goose occupying a 

 Fish Hawk's nest or a Mallard laying in a Rough-leg's nest, occur 

 without number. 



^ It is to be expected, too, that the character of a bird's haunts should 

 be reflected in its nesting-site, and as a result we have some most inter- 

 esting variations in site among birds of the same family but which live 

 in unlike haunts. Many Hawks, for example, are wood-dwellers, and 

 the ideal Hawk's nest is placed in a tree; but the Marsh Hawk lives in 

 treeless areas and nests upon the ground. So the Burrowing Owl of 

 the prairies nests in holes in the ground; while the forest-haunting mem- 

 bers of its family usually select hollow trees. Consequently it follows 

 that when there is a marked difference in the range of the same species 

 there is apt to be a corresponding variation in the nature of its nesting- 

 site. The Red-winged Blackbirds living in reedy marshes weave their 

 nests to the reed-stems, while those Redwings of the adjoining alder 

 growths place their nests in alder bushes. Mourning Doves nest in 

 trees in the East, and on the ground in treeless areas of the West. Night 

 Herons, which in the East may build seventy or eighty feet from the 

 ground, in the West build at water-level among reeds. Even more 

 surprising is it to find the Great Blue Heron in treeless areas nesting on 

 the bare ground or on rocks, rarely, or never, however, using a terres- 

 trial site except upon islands. While many birds show little or no varia- 

 tion in the character of their nesting-sites, others place their nests in 

 many and widely different situations, even under the same conditions. 

 Robins, for example, aside from nesting in trees at varying heights, 

 place their nests on window-sills, in arbors, summer-houses or barns, 

 on fence-rails, etc., and in cases of this kind it is interesting to learn 

 the fate of those nests which in site depart from the prevailing type. 

 Civilization, which while it has added the cat to the Robin's enemies, 



