42 
BIRD CRADLES. 
found it in its native element, and its mind, an epitome o is i 
tliougli liis vision appears to have been hope, solicitude, providence, i s me ivi 
somewhat askew, his was a worthier aim uality, its energy, caution, in e igence, 
and attitude than the 
other extreme of exact 
science which has to do ^ S v 
merely with museum 
specimens, with a ready : 
list of synonyms in place 
of an inspiring rem- 
inisc e n c e, 
with wire . 
and tow as 
a substi- 
tute for 
animation 
and song. 
“ A bird 
Nest of the Redstart. 
reason and economy, discrimination, 
taste, fancy, even its caprice and whim, 
almost of its humor. 
In their arts we may learn something 
of their mental resources, even as the 
in the hand is worth two in the bush ” 
is a pagan motto for the ornitholo¬ 
gist. “The bird is not in its ounces 
and inches,” says Emerson, “ but in its 
relations to nature; and the skin or 
skeleton you show me is no more a 
heron than a heap of ashes into which 
his body has been reduced is Dante or 
Washington,” The true ornithologist 
knows his bird in the bush before he 
converts it into a specimen ; and to truly 
know his bird in its bush he must have 
been admitted to its home. Neither the 
color of the plumage nor the shape and 
decoration of its egg, while so essential 
in the scientific classification of the bird, 
are any index to its conscious being— 
the true bird. Bobolink doffs his white 
cap, not from desire or volition, but be¬ 
cause he can’t help it. These functions 
are fulfilled in spite of the bird and are 
beyond his control, while even the finer 
attributes of habits and song may be 
said to be scarcely less spontaneous and 
automatic. 
Not so the nest—the home, the cradle. 
In these exquisite fabrics, materializa¬ 
tions of the supreme aspirations in the 
life of the bird, we have at once a key to 
antiquary will find in the remnant dec¬ 
orated relics of an extinct people testi¬ 
monies not disclosed by the mummy. 
To know the nidification and nest-hfe of 
a bird is to get the cream of its history. 
We may snap our fingers at vocabularies 
and synonyms. 
Even an empty nest is still eloquent 
with interest. A few of them have 
been gathered about me as I write ; and 
how beautiful they are ! Here is one 
picked up at random. Not a rare speci¬ 
men from the tropics, but an every-day 
affair of our country walks. What an 
interesting study of ways and means and 
confident skill! Hung by its edge from 
a horizontal fork of a maple twig, with a 
third of its circumference unsupported, 
it is yet so boldly wrought that this very 
span shall serve as the perch of the 
parent bird. Its edge is plainly com¬ 
pressed, though barely depressed, by 
evident continual use, and considering 
the nature of the materials at this por¬ 
tion its stability was perfectly insured. 
What nice discrimination in the choice 
of strands by which the nest is anchored 
to the swinging bough, its support being 
almost entirely dependent upon a cer- 
