14 
INTRODUCTION. 
glance at a few examples, chiefly domestic ; since to give any thing 
like a general view of this subject of the architecture employed by 
birds would far exceed the narrow limits we prescribe. And here 
we may remark, that, after migration, there is no more certain 
display of the reveries of instinct than what presides over this 
interesting and necessary labor of the species. And yet so nice are 
the observable gradations betwixt this innate propensity and the 
dawnings of reason, that it is not always easy to decide upon the 
characteristics of one as distinct from the other. Pure and unde- 
viating instincts are perhaps wholly confined to the invertebral class 
of animals. 
In respect to the habits of birds, we well know, that, like the 
quadrupeds, they possess, though in an inferior degree, the capacity 
for a certain measure of what maybe termed education, or the power 
of adding to their stock of invariable habits, the additional circum- 
stantial traits of an inferior degree of reason. Thus in those birds 
who have discovered, like the faithful dog, that humble companion 
of man, the advantages to be derived from associating round his 
premises, the regularity of their instinctive habits gives way, in a 
measure, to improvable conceptions. In this manner our Golden 
Robin ( Icterus baltimora ) or Fiery Hang-Bird, originally only a 
native of the wilderness and the forest, is now a constant summer 
resident in the vicinity of villages and dwellings. From the de- 
pending boughs of our towering Elms, like the Oriole of Europe, 
and the Cassican of tropical America, he weaves his pendulous and 
purse-like nest of the most tenacious and durable materials he can 
collect. These naturally consist of the Indian hemp, flax of the 
silk-weed ( Asclepias species), and other tough and fibrous sub- 
stances : but with a ready ingenuity he discovers that real flax and 
hemp, as well as thread, cotton, yarn, and even hanks of silk, or 
small strings, and horse and cow hair, are excellent substitutes for 
his original domestic materials; and in order to be convenient to 
these accidental resources, a matter of some importance in so tedious 
a labor, he has left the wild woods of his ancestry, and conscious 
of the security of his lofty and nearly inaccessible mansion, has taken 
up his welcome abode in the precincts of our habitations. The 
same motives of convenience and comfort have had their apparent 
influence on many more of our almost domestic feathered tribes ; 
the Blue-birds, Wrens, and Swallows, original inhabitants of the 
woods, are now no less familiar than our Pigeons. The Cat-bird 
often leaves his native solitary thickets for the convenience and 
