INTELLIGENCE IN BIRDS. 119 
after leading you a “wild goose chase,” and at a suffi- 
cient distance from the nest, how suddenly and easily 
. she flies away out of reach of all danger. This is always 
the ruse of many of the ground nesters, the sparrows, 
plovers, whip-poor-will, partridge and many others. 
Jane Taylor, in an article on the difference between 
man and inferior animals, says: ‘ Man has reason, ani- 
mals only instinct; man makes mistakes, animals never 
do; animals never make improvements,” and continues, 
“Who ever saw a bird puzzling its head over its unfin- 
ished nest?” Had she been an observing naturalist she 
might on many occasions have seen just this. Birds 
often find great difficulty in obtaining sufficient materi- 
als of which they are most fond, and may have to go a 
long way to get enough of the soft fabrics with which 
to finish the nest, thus delaying the completion for sev- 
eral days. 
Sometimes the twigs to which it is fastened prove too 
weak for its support, and then the ingenuity of the birds 
comes into play to remedy the defect. I have seen them 
tie two branches together, that were spreading apart, 
and make them fast to a limb above them and then finish 
the nest. Within a week I have seen the nest of an 
oriole canted over by the breaking of a limb caused by 
high wind; the birds, instead of forsaking the nest, 
somewhere secured a piece of white tape three or four 
feet long, and with this fastened the broken branch 
securely to another limb. Birds that build early in the 
season, while the weather is cold, make much more sub- 
stantial nests than those that build later. The chipping 
