92 THE CITY OF THE BIRDS. 



Many other birds, of ground-building habits, 

 have partly learned the roofing trade. The 

 meadow lark is fairly a good mechanic in this 

 respect ; the Maryland yellow-throats that take 

 to the swamps and lowlands are necessarily sub- 

 stantial foundation builders, and sometimes arch 

 their nests, and the black and white creepers pay 

 more or less attention in making a kind of gablet 

 over their homes. One often wonders why these 

 last-named birds, that pass most of their time in 

 climbing about the high trees in the wood, should 

 be so terrestrial in their nesting habits. Why do 

 they not, like the brown creepers and titmice, 

 whose ways of life theirs otherwise much resem- 

 ble, choose some deserted woodpecker's tenement, 

 or a hollow bough or trunk, for a building site.' 

 A close observer of the birds says they do rarely 

 build in the holes of the trees. Perhaps those 

 that locate in such exceptional places are still the 

 followers of an old custom, or it may be they are a 

 few representatives that are beginning to find out 

 that log cabins are safer to raise families in than 

 ordinary unshielded nests under foot. The spar- 

 row and bunting ground-builders, although most 

 skillful architects, have evidently never thought of 

 making roofs. That they are more likely to suf- 

 fer from the thieving snakes, weasels and crows 

 in consequence, can not be doubted. Yet after 

 all there is some protective, maintaining power at 



