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Birds' -Nesting. 
479 
V. BIRDS’- NESTING. 
By Allen Harker. 
§ S the time of year again comes round when the nesting 
operations of birds begin, it may not be unseason- 
able to make to our readers some plea on behalf of 
our native birds, and to indicate to all who may have 
influence to exert, or authority to exercise, on the question 
of birds’-nesting, methods by which alike the study of 
Ornithology and the interests of our bird population may be 
best served, and their preservation insured. 
Surely of all God’s creatures which delight us, those 
which give us the purest, most unalloyed pleasure, are the 
“Feather’d songsters of the grove”! 
How much of the charm of English or Scottish landscape, 
of deep wooded lane and open breezy heath and common, 
is due to the presence of ever active, ever musical bird-life, 
may be best appreciated by a visit to countries where the 
birds are songless, or where, as in many parts of the Conti- 
nent, for great stretches of country, scarce a bird is to be 
seen. Such a visit could not fail to impress the lover of 
Nature with a sense of his duty to use his endeavours to 
preserve from the dull monotony of a birdless country the 
melodious fields and hedgerows of rural England. 
It is not solely on behalf of the birds themselves, and 
their nests and eggs, that it seems desirable to awaken 
greater interest and aCtion, but also in favour of a more 
systematic and accurate study of the subject, combined 
with a true scientific use of the knowledge thus obtained — 
knowledge which is now in a purposeless manner allowed 
to become lost. 
The building of a bird’s nest, the choice of site, the se- 
lection and gathering of materials, the deft skill that carries 
on and perfects the work ; the number, size, and colour of 
the eggs, their variations, the period of incubation, the sex 
of the incubator, the condition of the new-born young, their 
growth, and first essays at independent flight — these are 
events in the natural history of the bird, no less interesting 
or important to the ornithologist than its anatomy, its dis- 
tribution, or any other of the chapters in its history. But 
