72 
NESTING SITE 
an influence. The young of Herons, Spoonbills, Anhingas, Cormorants 
and Ibises are altricial, hence require the protection of a more or less 
inaccessible nest during the comparatively long period they are con- 
fined to it. On the other hand, the Whip-poor-will is, in feeding habit, 
a bird of the air, but the eggs are laid on the ground, the prsecocial 
young apparently not requiring the shelter of a nest. 
Exceptions to the rule that exclusively terrestrial feeding birds 
usually nest upon the ground have already been referred to under 
Herons, Ibises, Spoonbills, etc., whose gregariousness in connection 
with the condition of the young at birth evidently demands an arboreal 
site; but the reasons why such terrestrial birds as the Quail and Grouse, 
Snipe and Plover or the Loons and Grebes nest on the ground are 
obvious. It is equally to be expected that birds, like the Catbird, which 
live among bushes, should nest among them, and that arboreal species, 
like Tanagers, should nest in trees, though we shall always find inter- 
esting variations or departures from the normal; as, for example, the 
nesting of the Solitary Sandpiper in the old homes of such arboreal 
species as the Robin, or of the Wood Duck and Golden-eye in trees, 
while such purely individual variations as a Wild Goose occupying a 
Fish Hawk’s nest or a Mallard laying in a Rough-leg’s nest, occur 
without number. 
It is to be expected, too, that the character of a bird’s haunts should 
be reflected in its nesting-site, and as a result we have some most inter- 
esting variations in site among birds of the same family but which live 
in unlike haunts. Many Hawks, for example, are wood-dwellers, and 
the ideal Hawk’s nest is placed in a tree; but the Marsh Hawk lives in 
treeless areas and nests upon the ground. So the Burrowing Owl of 
the prairies nests in holes in the ground; while the forest-haunting mem- 
bers of its family usually select hollow trees. Consequently it follows 
that when there is a marked difference in the range of the same species 
there is apt to be a corresponding variation in the nature of its nesting- 
site. The Red- winged Blackbirds living in reedy marshes weave their 
nests to the reed-stems, while those Redwings of the adjoining alder 
growths place their nests in alder bushes. Mourning Doves nest in 
trees in the East, and on the ground in treeless areas of the West. Night 
Herons, which in the East may build seventy or eighty feet from the 
ground, in the West build at water-level among reeds. Even more 
surprising is it to find the Great Blue Heron in treeless areas nesting on 
the bare ground or on rocks, rarely, or never, however, using a terres- 
trial site except upon islands. While many birds show little or no varia- 
tion in the character of their nesting-sites, others place their nests in 
many and widely different situations, even under the same conditions. 
Robins, for example, aside from nesting in trees at varying heights, 
place their nests on window-sills, in arbors, summer-houses or barns, 
on fence-rails, etc., and in cases of this kind it is interesting to learn 
the fate of those nests which in site depart from the prevailing type. 
Civilization, which while it has added the cat to the Robin’s enemies, 
