lo THE SEMI-ANNUAL. 



of small brush ; willow and osage-orange hedges along most 

 roads and in many fields. Few and small streams. Proportional 

 lands : under cultivation, 25 per ct. ; pasture, 25 per ct. ; meadow, 

 20 per ct. ; woods — also pastured — roper ct. ; isolated brush — also 

 pastured — 5 per ct. ; wild prairie, 5 per ct. ; artificial groves 5 

 per ct. ; hedges, 5 per ct. Equally used for nesting. 



Lynds Jones. 



CLIMATIC CONDITIONS. 



That the seasons very materially affect nesting no one can fail 

 to see. In the earliest histoiy of bird-life as the seasons grew 

 out of perpetual tropical climate, the birds must have selected 

 the time best suited to the propagation of their kind to build their 

 nests and rear their young. As the seasons emerged, from what 

 cause we do not care to argue, the most fitting time was selected. 



Clearly that time could not have been in the full heat of what 

 is now our Summer, nor yet in what now is Winter, since these 

 seasons have nothing of that which gives buoyancy to life, which 

 quickens the pulse and starts anew the flagging powers. For 

 this office, birds as well as all other life, require the time when 

 their life is most full, most vigorous, when there is most life in 

 them. Spring is the awakening, the invigorating, the life-giving 

 season. Certainlv their selection of the season is a most natural 

 one. 



But early and late seasons, cold and warm, play no unimportant 

 part in their nesting. Let it be observed that it is the old birds, 

 and those which have passed the Winter nearest by, that nest 

 first. They nest as soon as the weather is fit. As cold storms 

 are more frequent early than late in Spring, the earlier birds will 

 be most aftected by the weather, as a matter of course. After a 

 cold storm abandoned nests of the Robin have been found, half 

 finished, thus deferring the nesting season days perhaps. Even 

 when the nest is not abandoned the birds partly or entirely sus- 

 pend work until the weather brightens. It is harder to find food 

 in bad weather as the birds cannot work so long nor so well. 



The question has been asked, " Does the time of year or 

 weather effect the composition or workmanship of the nest.?" 

 The reports throw no light upon the effect of weather, upon the 

 composition or workmanship, but there is some evidence that the 



