WAYS OF NATURE 



the nest, and usually builds it unaided. The life of 

 the male is more or less a holiday or picnic till the 

 young are hatched, when his real cares begin, for 

 he does his part in feeding them. One may see the 

 male cedar-bird attending the female as she is busy 

 with her nest-building, but never, so far as I have 

 observed, assisting her. One spring I observed with 

 much interest a phoebe-bird building her nest not 

 far from my cabin in the woods. The male looked 

 on approvingly, but did not help. He perched most 

 of the time on a mullein stalk near the little spring 

 run where Phoebe came for mud. In the early 

 morning hours she made her trips at intervals of a 

 minute or two. The male flirted his tail and called 

 encouragingly, and when she started up the hill 

 with her load he would accompany her part way, 

 to help her over the steepest part, as it were, then 

 return to his perch and watch and call for her re- 

 turn. For an hour or more I witnessed this little 

 play in bird Ufe, in which the female's part was so 

 primary and the male's so secondary. There is 

 something in such things that seems to lend support 

 to Professor Lester F. Ward's contention, as set 

 forth in his "Pure Sociology," that in the natural 

 evolution of the two sexes the female was first and 

 the male second ; that he was made from her rib, 

 so to speak, and not she from his. 



With our phalarope and a few Australian birds, 

 the position of the two sexes as indicated above 

 112 



