INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS. 



a nest, unless it follows the pattern of a Robin's or Sparrow's. 

 I asked him one day if there were many kinds of nests in 

 his neighbourhood. " Wall," he said, leaning on his axe (for 

 it was the wood-chopping season) and giving a reminiscent 

 gaze through the brush, "there's plenty o' birds, but, bless 

 yer, not half on 'em makes any reg'lar sort o' nests. Sparrers 

 and Eobins does, an' Catbirds an' Crows ; but Swallers ony 

 makes mud-pies, an' Humbirds jest sets down right where- 

 ever they see a round o' moss on a branch, and the warmth 

 o' them makes the moss grow up a bit, but I don't call that 

 a nest. The Hangbird (Oriole) he strings up a bag in a 

 tree, an' them Red-eyed Warblers (Vireos) hooks a mess 

 o' scraps in a twig fork, but those ain't real nests : an' tree- 

 mice (Nuthatches) don't have none at all, jest stuffs a few 

 feathers in a hole, I seen one to-day ; " and after turning 

 over his wood he produced an upright branch containing 

 the feather-lined bed of the White-breasted Nuthatch. 



Spend a month on the bird-quest, or a week even, and 

 your eyes will be opened to the possibilities, and you will 

 become alive to the fact, that the feathered race has its 

 artisans the same as the human brotherhood. Weavers 

 whose looms antedate all man's inventions, masons, car- 

 penters, frescoers, decorators, and upholsterers, its skilled 

 mechanics, and shiftless, unskilled labourers, and its para- 

 sitic tramps, who house their young at the expense of others. 

 As for varied materials, — hay, sticks, feathers, hair, moss, 

 bark, fur, hog-bristles, dandelion-down, mud, catkins, seed- 

 pods, lichens, paper, rags, yarn, and snake skins, are only 

 a part of the bird architect's list of usable things. 



You must not hope to identify all the nests possible to 

 your locality in a single season, or even in three or four, but 

 be always on the watch. If you fail to see the birds build, 

 which is the easiest and surest way of knowing the nest, 

 when the autumn comes and the leaves fall away many 

 nests will be revealed in places where you never thought 

 they existed, and you will learn where to look another 

 season. If these nests are of marked types, you can iden- 

 tify them even in the autumn, and it will give you a new 



14 



