WAYS OF NATURE 
canary. This publicity she evidently did not like, for 
she tore out of the paper that covered the bottom of 
her cage a piece as large as one’s hand and wove it 
into the wires so as to make a screen against her 
inquisitive neighbors. My informant evidently be- 
lieved this story. It was agreeable to her fancies and 
feelings. But see the difficulties in the way. How 
could the bird with its beak tear out a broad piece 
of paper? then, how could it weave it into the wires 
of its cage? Furthermore, the family of birds to 
which the canary belongs are not weavers ; they 
build cup-shaped nests, and they have had no use 
for screens or covers, and they never have made 
them. Just what was the truth about the matter I 
cannot say, but if we know anything about animal 
psychology, we know that was not the truth. It is 
always risky to attribute to an animal any act its 
ancestors could not have performed. 
Again, things are reported as facts that are not 
so much contrary to reason as contrary to all expe- 
rience, and with these, too, I have my difficulties. 
A recent writer upon our wild life says he has dis- 
covered that the cowbird watches over its young 
and assists the foster-parents in providing food 
for them — an observation so contrary to all that 
we know of parasitical birds, both at home and 
abroad, that no real observer can credit the state- 
ment. Our cowbird has been under observation for 
a hundred years or more; every dweller in the coun- 
178 
