Birds’ Nests and Eggs 
The ways of birds are difficult to understand. Why should 
some build in colonies, and others singly but in close proximity, 
and others again miles away from their kind? The passenger 
pigeon gives the best example of nest colonies, immense numbers 
breeding in a very limited area. Prof. H. B. Rooney speaks of 
a nesting area forty miles long and from three to ten miles wide, 
where, in 1878, a million and a half of the pigeons were killed for 
food purposes, while if those that were taken alive and the dead 
nestlings were included, the number would reach the enormous 
total of a thousand millions. This is thought to be somewhat ex- 
aggerated, but shows what an immense number of birds must 
have been breeding in this limited space. Some of our small birds 
nest in colonies ; among them the red-winged blackbird and some 
of the swallows afford the most noticeable examples. The bobo- 
link and marsh wrens also live in scattered communities during 
the breeding season. Most of the larger hawks select a desirable 
copse or fairly large tract of woodland as a common home, and it 
is seldom that another nest of the same species is found within 
that area. In Florida, where each cypress swamp is usually clearly 
defined, it is seldom, except in the large swamps, that one finds 
in each more than one nest of the Florida red-shouldered hawk— 
a species very abundant throughout the more southern parts of 
the State. 
Some birds return regularly year after year to the same nest- 
ing site, even after their nests have been robbed several times. I 
have known a crested flycatcher to build in the same hole for 
three years in succession though each set of eggs was taken. 
Pheebes return with great regularity to the same bridge, building, 
or rock, where they make one or two nests each season. Some 
of the owls also use the same hole for many years, and hawks 
and crows rebuild their old nests, so that each year the nest be- 
comes larger as layer after layer is added. 
Most, if not all, birds are governed in their habits by regular 
rules—from which, however, they occasionally depart. just as 
human beings depart from the rules which seem most generally 
applicable. 
The Wilson’s thrush, whose nest is commonly on or near the 
ground, has been known to build ina hole inatree. Bob-whites’ 
nests containing thirty-seven eggs have been reported—though 
these were, of course, not all laid by one hen. The eggs were 
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