82 SOME CHANGES I1ST THE HABITS OF BIRDS. 



so increased in numbers that the note of a wood-thrush 

 is almost as common as the cry of a robin, but the birds 

 are about as tame. Again and again have I seen them, at 

 noonday, hopping about on the piazza of a residence, 

 picking the crumbs thrown there by friendly hands, and 

 doing it with the utmost disregard of several human 

 occupants of the other end of the piazza. 



They still retire to secluded places for their nests, thus 

 exhibiting native tenacity to habits essential to the 

 preservation of their species. But here, as elsewhere, 

 the modification lias begun in unimportant matters, — 

 apparently unimportant matters — while the apparently 

 essential features of its life are unchanged. But how 

 long before these non-essential habits will react upon 

 the essentials, and change them too % Let us look at it. 



In their more remote dwelling place, these birds have 

 enemies, no doubt, enemies of their own personal 

 safety, enemies of their nests, and eggs, and unfledged 

 young. For avoiding these enemies most of their habits 

 are formed, especially that of nesting. In their remote 

 haunts they build on the ground, or in bushes where 

 old leaves only raise them from it. But as they ap- 

 proach the habitation of men, they meet a new enemy, 

 the prowling cat. This would at once necessitate a 

 change, and the birds seem to have made it, for all the 

 nests I have found were built at from three to five feet 

 from the ground, in well-guarded spots. 



But still another change is manifestly likely to occur 

 from their more quiet and less alert habits in the vicinity 

 of dwellings, and the greater supply of food. They 

 would naturally become more moderate in motions and 

 less agile, increase in size, and in general bulkiness of 

 a£>pearance. Other changes might occur from leaving 

 the marshy vicinity of a stream, and taking up an abode 

 in a dry place — slight changes of food, and the manner 

 of securing it. 



66 



