120 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
The birds, or at any rate many of them, seem 
to welcome the coming of mankind, and to make 
friends with him at once, and occasionally to fol- 
low him into wider countries. Thus the swift, the 
barn-swallow, and the eave-swallow have aban- 
doned in the east their habits of nesting in hol- 
low trees and upon rocky cliffs or clay-banks, and 
now make their homes altogether in the chimneys 
of houses and under the eaves and roofs of barns 
and outhouses. The phcebe-bird so generally 
chooses the exposed timbers of bridges that it is 
more widely known as the bridge-pewee than by 
any other name; yet it as often places its adobe 
cabin on the beam of a shed or porch, as if seek- 
ing human company. The grouse, quail, crow, 
and some other birds have moved westward with 
the advancing migration of agriculture; and every- 
where, no doubt, the total of singing-birds has 
been greatly increased by the civilizing of the 
land. Thus we make daily observation of most 
of the birds, and only need to attend to them more 
minutely to become aware of the presence of those 
kinds more rare or occasional. 
With the mammals the case is different. Almost 
the only kinds, not voluntarily domesticated, that 
have attached themselves to mankind, are the rats 
and mice — cosmopolitan pests, presumably of 
Asiatic origin, which have now spread all over 
the world. Many beasts, as the big game and 
fiercer carnivores, have almost or quite disappeared 
