NEST BUILDING 279 



Wabash, having had a low nest destroyed by 

 grazing cattle, at once set aljout building the highest 

 dove nest I ever have seen, on an elm branch at 

 least thirty feet above ground. 



I never have seen cuckoos building, but their 

 nest is such an artless, loosely constructed affair, 

 composed of such a small handful of twigs that it 

 would be no tax if the female carried the material 

 and built alone. Twice in work with perhaps a 

 dozen cuckoo nests, I have come across the aban- 

 doned nests of other birds that cuckoos have re- 

 lined and used. One was the nest of a shitepoke, 

 and the other the nest of a robin. I notice that 

 several writers on natural history describe the 

 cuckoo's nest as "filthy." I have examined them 

 by the dozen in my lifetime, reproduced at least a 

 dozen, and never have I found a soiled nest. I 

 can produce many pictures in proof of this taken 

 even so late as on the day the young leave home. 



Only a few days ago I read the amazing state- 

 ment that some of our cuckoos, like their European 

 relatives and our cowbirds, impose their eggs upon 

 the mercy of other birds. It was especially speci- 

 fied that the nests of robins, catbirds, and others 

 having an egg very similar were chosen. Never 

 have I seen or heard of such a thing as a young 

 cuckoo in the nest of a robin, catbird, or any 

 other bird. I should have to be very thoroughly 

 "shown" before I should believe that these writers 

 are not mistaking the first very large egg of a 



