GATHERED BY THE WAY 
shield of any sort. The robin had welded her nest 
so completely to the soil in the box that the whole 
could be lifted by the rim of the nest. She had 
given a very pretty and unique effect to the nest 
by a border of fine dark rootlets skillfully woven 
together. The song sparrow shows a high degree of 
variability both inits song and in its nesting-habits, 
each bird having several songs of its own, while 
one may nest upon the ground and another in a 
low bush, or in the vines on the side of your house. 
The vesper sparrow, on the other hand, shows a 
much lower degree of variability, the individuals 
rarely differing in their songs, while all the nests I 
have ever found of this sparrow were in open grassy 
fields upon the ground. The chipping or social 
sparrow is usually very constant in its song and its 
nesting-habits, and yet one season a chippy built 
her nest in an old robin’s nest in the vines on my 
porch. It was a very pretty instance of adaptation 
on the part of the little bird. Another chippy that 
I knew had an original song, one that resembled 
the sound of a small tin whistle. The bush spar- 
Tow, too, is pretty constant in choosing a bush in 
which to place its nest, yet I once found the nest of 
this sparrow upon the ground in an open field with 
suitable bushes within a few yards of it. The wood- 
peckers, the jays, the cuckoos, the pewees, the war- 
blers, and other wood birds show only a low degree 
of variability in song, feeding, and nesting habits. 
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