DEVIOUS PATHS 



unmethodical, how delightfully irregular, how un- 

 mistakably a piece of wild nature! 



Sometimes the instinct of the bird is tardy, and 

 the egg of the bird gets ripe before the nest is ready; 

 in such a case the egg is of course lost. I once found 

 the nest of the black and white creeping warbler in 

 a mossy bank in the woods, and under the nest was 

 an egg of the bird. The warbler had excavated the 

 site for her nest, dropped her egg into it, and then 

 gone on with her building. Instinct is not always 

 inerrant. Nature is wasteful, and plays the game 

 with a free hand. Yet what she loses on one side she 

 gains on another; she is like that least bittern Mr. 

 Frank M. Chapman tells about. Two of the bittern's 

 five eggs had been punctured by the long-billed 

 marsh wren. When the bird returned to her nest 

 and found the two eggs punctured, she made no 

 outcry, showed no emotion, but deliberately pro- 

 ceeded to eat them. Having done this, she dropped 

 the empty shells over the side of the nest, together 

 with any straws that had become soiled in the pro- 

 cess, cleaned her bill, and proceeded with her incu- 

 bation. This was Nature in a nut-shell, — or rather 

 egg-shell, — turning her mishaps to some good ac- 

 count. If the egg will not make a bird, it will make 

 food; if not food, then fertihzer. 



Among nearly all our birds, the female is the 

 active business member of the partnership; she has 

 a turn for practical affairs; she chooses the site of 

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