146 
COMMUNISTIC BIRD. 
co-operative housekeeping from theory to prac- 
tice. 
Each of the large trees held from one to half 
a dozen great nests, built of sticks and carelessly 
lined with grass, and each nest held from two to 
six young occupants. These were of varying 
ages : some hardly out of the shell ; others cer- 
tainly a week old, and others still more mature. 
As one pair of heron produce but two eggs in a 
season, it was clear that several couples must be 
uniting their parental labors in each of the more 
populous nests. 
Could he have discovered their system of di- 
vision of labor, who can say how much it might 
have done toward the solution of some of the 
vexed social problems of the day ! 
No dismal forebodings of inability to provide a 
nest for his bride shuts young heron’s bill as he 
poises himself upon one leg in sentimental mood 
beside the bird that ruffles his feathers with ad- 
miration ! He can lay his heart and freshest frog, 
at her feet with impunity. Nor need visions 
of long, weary days and nights of close confine- 
ment to a nest, full of unrelieved care, deter her 
from accepting both with alacrity. Whatever 
“ corners ” may occur in twigs, he can surely 
provide enough for a third of a nest. No spectre 
of bills for hired help, or of his young wife be- 
coming a nervous, rusty-feathered old bird before 
