May 13, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



765 



from that to which we are accustomed in the 

 scientific books and treatises of our acquaint- 

 ance. In an ordinary person this would be 

 called Billingsgate, and the feeling that pro- 

 duced it might be termed anger, irritation, 

 jealousy, malice, envy, spite, or some other 

 purely personal and unscientific stimuli. 

 Since, however, he has no personal feelings 

 in the matter, it might be well for him, being, 

 as he tells us, a ' technical student of psychol- 

 ogy,' to examine himself seriously in order to 

 ascertain what extraordinary mental state it 

 is which, without feelings, causes all the symp- 

 toms of intense nervous irritation, and which, 

 in a normal scientist, causes him to write in 

 such very unscientific language. We suspect 

 he has mistaken his symptoms, and that he 

 must revise either his language or his psy- 

 chology. 



2. The one specific case which Mr. Davis 

 mentions and ridicules, and which has been 

 derided also by Mr. Burroughs and one or two 

 other critics of his kind, as showing nothing 

 but my own ' gullibility,' is the case of the 

 orioles' nest. In the case of the woodcock I 

 have already given the kind of evidence which 

 supplements my own personal observations, 

 and which I can produce abundantly to verify 

 every one of my published records of animal 

 habits. The orioles' nest is a somewhat dif- 

 ferent matter, in that it is not the direct re- 

 sult of my own personal observation. I re- 

 ferred to the nest in a magazine article simply 

 to illustrate, from another's observation, the 

 unexpected recurrence of a rare phenomenon, 

 such as an oriole's fastening two twigs together 

 with a piece of twine, which I had once seen 

 done. Since, however, some readers may have 

 an honest question as to why I should accept 

 such an unusual observation, I submit certain 

 facts which, for obvious reasons, it hardly 

 seemed necessary to publish at the time I re- 

 ferred to the nest in the North American 

 Review. 



I first noticed the nest hanging in a room 

 where a man lay dying. It was a sad story 

 - — ^but that is no part of the evidence. The 

 dying man was being cared for with infinite 

 patience by a kindly workingman, who was 

 no relation whatever. It was the latter who 



owned the nest, who had watched it building, 

 and who told me about it, one day, noticing 

 my unconscious interest. After the funeral 

 it was given to me, unexpectedly, in gratitude 

 for certain little kindnesses which I had been 

 able to show to the family and to the dying 

 man, who also knew all about the nest. Every 

 circumstance in the case was such as to pre- 

 clude any thought of deception, even had there 

 been the slightest ground for such a thing. 



The nest itself is, without a question, the 

 work of orioles, and the only possible doubt can 

 be in the matter of the framework. The sticks 

 are not such as a man would choose, and the 

 tree in which it hung is the very last that a 

 man would select for hanging such a frame- 

 work. It is a huge buttonwood, and no man or 

 boy living could climb out on the slender 

 branch to where the nest was hung. Only a 

 ladder would be possible, and in the whole 

 neighborhood of the nest there was not a lad- 

 der found long enough to reach it. When it 

 was proposed to cut it down, in the autum n , an 

 extra long ladder had to be brought from some 

 masons who were repairing a chimney; and 

 this had to be stood almost straight on end 

 before it barely touched the branch. Two men 

 were required to hold the long ladder in place 

 while a third went up with difficulty to cut 

 down the nest. If a man had made the frame- 

 work for the birds' use, he would certainly, un- 

 less crazy, have hung it in a different tree and 

 in a more accessible place. All these external 

 facts, which I have verified myself, point to 

 the whole marvelous structure as the work of 

 birds alone. 



At least four persons, two men and two 

 women — all of them honest and trustworthy 

 people — saw the nest at different stages of its 

 construction, and when questioned, separately 

 and unexpectedly, gave substantially the same 

 testimony. I submit the sworn statement of 

 the man beside whose house the nest was built, 

 who watched the work of construction from 

 beginning to end, and who cut down the nest 

 after the birds had raised their young in it 

 and flown away : 



I certify that I watched, from beginning to end, 

 the construction of the nest now hanging in Dr. 

 Long's study, and described by him in the North 



