VII 
DEVIOUS PATHS 
HERE is no better type or epitome of wild na- 
ture than the bird’s-nest — something built, 
and yet as if it grew, a part of the ground, or of 
the rock, or of the branch upon which it is placed; 
beginning so coarsely, so irregularly, and ending 
so finely and symmetrically; so unlike the work of 
hands, and yet the result of a skill beyond hands; 
and when it holds its complement of eggs, how pleas- 
ing, how suggestive! 
The bird adapts means to an end, and yet so dif- 
ferently from the way of man, — an end of which it 
does not know the value or the purpose. We know 
it is prompted to it by the instinct of reproduc- 
tion. When the woodpecker in the fall excavates a 
lodge in a dry limb, we know he is prompted to it 
by the instinct of self-preservation, but the birds 
themselves obey the behests of nature without know- 
ledge. 
A bird’s-nest suggests design, and yet it seems 
almost haphazard; the result of a kind of madness, 
yet with method in it. The hole the woodpecker 
drills for its cell is to the eye a perfect circle, and the 
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