WAYS OF NATURE 
hard to find. I have been told of another robin’s 
nest upon the outside of which the bird had fastened 
a wooden label from a near-by flower-bed, marked 
“Wake Robin.” Still another nest I have seen built 
upon a large, showy foundation of the paper-like 
flowers of antennaria, or everlasting. The wood 
thrush frequently weaves a fragment of newspaper 
or a white rag into the foundation of its nest. “Evil 
communications corrupt good manners.” The 
newspaper and the rag-bag unsettle the wits of the 
birds. The phcebe-bird is capable of this kind of 
mistake or indiscretion. All the past generations of 
her tribe have built upon natural and, therefore, 
neutral sites, usually under shelving and overhang- 
ing rocks, and the art of adapting the nest to its 
surroundings, blending it with them, has been 
highly developed. But phcebe now frequently 
builds under our sheds and porches, where, so far 
as concealment is concerned, a change of material, 
say from moss to dry grass or shreds of bark, would 
be an advantage to her ; but she departs not a bit 
from the family traditions; she uses the same 
woodsy mosses, which in some cases, especially 
when the nest is placed upon newly sawed timber, 
make her secret an open one to all eyes. 
It does indeed often look as if the birds had very 
little sense. Think of a bluebird, or an oriole, or a 
robin, or a jay, fighting for hours at a time its own 
image as reflected in a pane of glass; quite exhaust- 
5 
