GATHERED BY THE WAY 



shield of any sort. The robin had welded her nest 

 so completely to the soil in the box that the whole 

 could be Kfted by the rim of the nest. She had 

 given a very pretty and unique effect to the nest 

 by a border of fine dark rootlets skillfully woven 

 together. The song sparrow shows a high degree of 

 variability both in its song and in its nesting-habits, 

 each bird having several songs of its own, while 

 one may nest upon the ground and another in a 

 low bush, or in the vines on the side of your house. 

 The vesper sparrow, on the other hand, shows a 

 much lower degree of variabiUty, the individuals 

 rarely differing in their songs, while all the nests I 

 have ever found of this sparrow were in open grassy 

 fields upon the ground. The chipping or social 

 sparrow is usually very constant in its song and its 

 nesting-habits, and yet one season a chippy built 

 her nest in an old robin's nest in the vines on my 

 porch. It was a very pretty instance of adaptation 

 on the part of the little bird. Another chippy that 

 I knew had an original song, one that resembled 

 the sound of a small tin whistle. The bush spar- 

 row, too, is pretty constant in choosing a bush in 

 which to place its nest, yet I once found the nest of 

 this sparrow upon the ground in an open field with 

 suitable bushes within a few yards of it. The wood- 

 peckers, the jays, the cuckoos, the pewees, the war- 

 blers, and other wood birds show only a low degree 

 of variability in song, feeding, and nesting habits. 

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