184 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 683 



above whicii one had to yell his loudest to be 

 heard. . . . About me, seemingly almost within 

 leach, I counted thirty-six sets of blue eggs. 

 I was high above the tops of the alders and 

 willows. Set all about below in the back- 

 ground of green were the platforms, each hold- 

 ing several eggs of blue. The trees were dot- 

 ted in every direction. I counted over four 

 hundred eggs in sight." 



The most interesting observations recorded, 

 from the standpoint of the reviewer, are the 

 following: the young of the Vigor's wren 

 were drawn or driven from the nest, when 

 ready for flight, by the male, who would seize 

 all the food which the female brought, until 

 the young were forced to leave. The question 

 of intelligence is not directly raised, but un- 

 doubtedly both birds were acting in this case 

 from pure or nearly pure instinct, the female 

 in hunting the prey, and the male in seizing 

 it. We should expect to find intelligence de- 

 veloped in an equal degree in either sex. A 

 bluebird box is mentioned in which one hun- 

 dred and ten birds were hatched in eight 

 years, and during one season there were three 

 broods of Y, 7 and 5 birds, respectively. In 

 one case, and this is a most interesting ob- 

 servation, two young bluebirds of the first 

 brood followed the male about while the fe- 

 male was incubating her second litter. When 

 the latter hatched the same young began to 

 follow their mother, and they imitated her so 

 well that they not only captured worms, but 

 carried them to the box and fed their brothers 

 and sisters of the second brood. It would be 

 difiicult to find a better example of imitation 

 in young birds, having without doubt its base 

 set firmly in instinct. But this suggestion is 

 perhaps even more prosaic than that of the 

 author, who surmises that " Perhaps the two 

 birds of the first brood were girls, and took 

 readily to housework." An oriole is men- 

 tioned which mated four times in succession 

 before she was allowed to rear a family, the 

 males having been successively shot by a col- 

 lector. A western gull was seen to seize a 

 clam, rise with it to a height of thirty feet 

 and drop it on the hard ground. This act was 

 repeated fifteen times before the bird was suc- 



cessful in breaking the shell and getting the 

 soft meat. In parts of the old world gulls are 

 said to resort to certain rocks for the purpose 

 of breaking shellfish, which is by no means 

 incredible. The act is intelligent, and is a 

 good illustration of associative memory. The 

 habit seems to be a rather rare and sfioradic 

 one. 



In the nest of the golden eagle the author 

 speaks of finding branches of green laurel, 

 which were apparently renewed, when taken 

 away. I have found freshly cut sprays of 

 green hemlock in the nest of the red-tailed 

 hawk, and fresh seaweed is said to be laid upon 

 its mountain of a nest by the osprey. Her- 

 ring gulls also add green materials to their 

 nests from time to time. I have seen this 

 gull while sitting on her eggs rise up, pull 

 some fresh grass, tuck it under her body, and 

 then settle back upon her eggs again. The 

 " habit " is probably the same in every case, 

 and may represent what I have called the 

 " recrudescence of the building instinct." 

 The fact that the leaf or the spray is fresh 

 and green may attract undue attention. 



The author remarks in his preface that " an 

 important and sometimes difiicult study of 

 bird-life is to observe accurately and report 

 without false interpretation the habits and 

 actions of the birds." We should rather say 

 that this was the whole matter, and sufiiciently 

 difficult at all times. Possibly in a popular 

 work of this kind it would be hardly fair to 

 hold the writer to the letter of his text. How- 

 ever, we note a few cases in which we can not 

 agree with his statements or interpretations. 

 Two paragraphs are devoted to the " heroic " 

 act of a chickadee in clinging to her eggs 

 when her home was invaded. It should be 

 added that the nest-hole of the fiicker can be 

 sawn open and the broody bird lifted from her 

 eggs or newly-hatched young with even greater 

 ease and freedom, and all are familiar with 

 the so-called " total depravity " of the setting 

 hen. If we call the bird a hero in the first 

 act, we must dub it a coward in the next, for 

 when the flickers are a week old their parents 

 have become excessively shy. In all such 

 cases we have a common illustration of how 



