WAYS OF NATURE 



rim of most nests is as true as that of a cup. The 

 circle and the sphere exist in nature; they are mo- 

 ther forms and hold all other forms. They are 

 easily attained; they are spontaneous and inevit- 

 able. The bird models her nest about her own 

 breast ; she turns round and round in it, and its 

 circular character results as a matter of course. 

 Angles, right lines, measured precision, so charac- 

 teristic of the works of man, are rarely met with 

 in organic nature. 



Nature reaches her ends by devious paths; she 

 loiters, she meanders, she plays by the way; she 

 surely " arrives," but it is always in a blind, hesitat- 

 ing, experimental kind of fashion. Follow the tun- 

 nels of the ants or the crickets, or of the moles and 

 the weasels, underground, or the courses of the 

 streams or the paths of the animals above ground 

 — how they turn and hesitate, how wayward and 

 undecided they are ! A right line seems out of the 

 question. 



The oriole often weaves strings into her nest ; 

 sometimes she binds and overhands the part of the 

 rim where she alights in going in, to make it stronger, 

 but it is always done in a hit-or-miss, childish sort 

 of way, as one would expect it to be; the strings are 

 massed, or snarled, or left dangling at loose ends, or 

 are caught around branches ; the weaving and the 

 sewing are effective, and the whole nest is a mar- 

 vel of blind skill, of untaught intelligence; yet how 

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