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 



