LEAF AND TENDRIL 



to creep up on the drumming partridge, and the bird 

 will instantly show how wary and suspicious he is. 



The female cowbird is much duller in color than 

 the male, and yet she is a parasitical bird, and does 

 no incubating at all. With the rose-breasted gros- 

 beak, the male seems to do his share of the incu- 

 bating, and has been heard to sing upon the nest. 



A fact that seems to tell against the notions I 

 have been advancing, and that gives support to the 

 theory of the protective value of dull colors, is the 

 fact that with those species of birds in which both 

 sexes are brightly colored, the nest is usually placed 

 in a hole, or is domed, thus concealing the sitting 

 bird. This is true of a large number of species, 

 as the bluebird, the woodpeckers, the chickadee, 

 the nuthatch, the kingfisher, and, in the tropics, the 

 various species of parrots and parrakeets and many 

 others, all birds of brilliant plumage, the sexes being 

 in each case indistinguishable. But there are such 

 marked exceptions to this rule that, it seems to me, 

 its force is greatly weakened. Our blue jay is a 

 highly colored bird, and yet it builds an open nest. 

 The crow builds an open nest. The passenger 

 pigeon was a bird of rather showy colors, and the 

 male did his share of the incubating, still the nest 

 was built openly. The shrike is a conspicuously 

 marked bird, and it builds an open nest. Mr. 

 Wallace names four other brilliant Old- World 

 birds that build open nests. Then there are several 

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