CARPENTERS, MASONS, AND 
MINERS 
A bird’s nest. Mark it well within, without. 
No tool had he that wrought, no knife to cut. 
No nail to fix, no bodkin to insert. 
No glue to join ; his little beak was all. 
And yet how neatly finished ! What nice hand 
With every implement and means of art, 
And twenty years’ apprenticeship, to boot. 
Could make me such another ? 
Hurdis. 
T he chimney swift is an anomaly 
among our native birds, constructing 
a nest that is easily first in point of beauty 
and workmanship ; laying eggs so perfect in 
shape and translucent in texture as to be 
startlingly like pearls, it hides all this loveli- 
ness in the smutty depths of an old chimney. 
By what utilitarian principle of evolution 
have the habits of this bat-like bird been so 
modified that it has forsaken the sweet, pure 
air of the forest for a sooty home in the 
dwellings of man ? Is it for protection from 
the ravages of squirrels and owls ? But 
