﻿FIELD AND FOREST. Ill 



water-courses. There it now drills its nesting holes in close proxim- 

 ity with the sand martins, while in the East it places its nest in a 

 nicely chiselled hole in a tree as do the rest of the woodpeckers. 



The night hawk ( Chordeiles popetue) which commonly roosts on 

 trees and scratches a shallow cavity in the ground in which to deposit 

 its eggs, has been found to roost and breed on top of the flat roofed 

 houses in many of our large cities. 



The strangest place, however, ever chosen for a bird's nest is that 

 selected by a pair of cedar birds. Whether in the spirit of gay mock- 

 ery and fearlessness, or from mere stupidity, I leave the reader to 

 judge ; their nest, which was a very elaborate one, was placed in the 

 gaping pocket of an old coat on a scare crow in a corn field near a 

 cherry orchard. 



Several years ago the Revue des Deux Mondes printed an article 

 touching the question whether or not birds improve in nest building. 

 After a few preliminary remarks, the writer waxes wroth, and wonders 

 how we can believe that nature provides for everything; that "blind 

 instinct" guides the bee in the construction of her cell and the bird 

 in the building of its nest. He is sceptical and essays to prove that 

 in its building operations the bird is not influenced by a certain power 

 or disposition of its nature, by which, independent of all instruction 

 or experience, it is unerringly directed to do spontaneously whatever 

 is necessary for its comfort and preservation — or instinct j but that the 

 stimulating agent is embodied in a faculty which enables the possessor 

 to deduce inferences from facts — or reason j claiming also that this 

 faculty is identical with that exhibited by man when he builds a house, 

 and that it is simply imitativeness. 



The first argument he produces in support of this theory is, that 

 birds brought up in confinement do not construct the nests peculiar to 

 their species ; generally rejecting the materials offered for that pur- 

 pose, or employing them without skill. He then asks, "does not 

 this well known fact prove that, instead of being guided by instinct, 

 the bird learns how to construct its nest, just as a man learns how to 

 build a house ? " The simple fact that birds reared in confinement 

 do not prepare proper nests, is not antagonistic to commonly received 

 notions in regard to instinct as an influencing cause in such opera- 

 tions. However, this raises quite a plausible objection to the power 

 of instinct; for, a§ our author says, the isolation of the birds deprives 



