BIRDS'-NESTS 



companions were taking their turn in exploring 

 the lay of the land around us, and noted no varia- 

 tion in the programme. It would be curious to know 

 it the young are fed and waited upon in regular 

 order, and how, amid the darkness and the crowded 

 state of the apartment, the matter is so neatly man- 

 aged. But ornithologists are all silent upon the 

 subject. 



This practice of the birds is not so uncommon 

 as it might at first seem. It is indeed almost an 

 invariable rule among all land birds. With wood- 

 peckers and kindred species, and with birds that 

 burrow in the ground, as bank swallows, king- 

 fishers, etc., it is a necessity. The accumulation of 

 the excrement in the nest would prove most fatal 

 to the young. 



But even among birds that neither bore nor mine, 

 but which build a shallow nest on the branch of a 

 tree or upon the ground, as the robin, the finches, 

 the buntings, etc., the ordure of the young is re- 

 moved to a distance by the parent bird. When 

 the robin is seen going away from its brood with a 

 slow, heavy flight, entirely different from its manner 

 a moment before on approaching the nest with a 

 cherry or worm, it is certain to be engaged in this 

 office. One may observe the social sparrow, when 

 feeding its young, pause a moment after the worm 

 has been given and hop around on the brink of the 

 nest observing the movements within. 

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