94 
LAND OF SUNSHINE. 
nesting in the grounds, some of which are rare and beautiful. 
Would we have the latter, we must love the linnets. And these 
linnets nest just where they are told and use any material des¬ 
ignated. Sometimes they nest where they are not told. Last 
year a phoebe built her mud nest in a cigar box tacked under 
the low barn eaves. One brood was raised and she returned 
this spring, repaired the old structure and was ready to begin 
business when some woodchoppers scared her away with their 
flying chips. After her temporary desertion, as it proved, a 
linnet took the old stand and reared her brood in the mud nest, 
beginning the second incubation without incident. Back came 
the pboebes one morning last week and they were very wroth. 
We watched the battle. Two birds against one was more than 
fair and our silent sympathies were with the mother linnet. 
She laid low in the nest above her eggs and fought like a Boer. 
The phoebes took hold of her wing feathers and pulled at them 
one on either side, imploring and commanding her to vacate 
their property. “ Possession is nine points,” called out the lin¬ 
net, and she stood, or rather sat them off. They then turned 
their attention to an adjoining cigar box, now and then looking 
across at the linnet reproachfully as if she were a tenant who 
did not pay her rent. Two pairs of linnets have just been 
nesting in cigar boxes on our upper balcony where they have 
grown familiar with certain details of housekeeping, such as 
rug shaking, blanket airing and so forth. 
It occurred to us that certain arctic material which we valued 
might appeal to the sense of these birds, and we placed it near 
by. They selected it at once and built a couple of nests as 
unique as are often seen. There was Timothy grass from the 
Kowak river, moss from the tundras of Cape Nome, feathers 
from an Emperor goose, lichens from the banks of Kotzebue 
Sound. These were woven well in and around, and lined with 
strips of a wedding gown of 25 years ago, as white as Swiss 
muslin of that age can well be. When the nests were completed 
we exchanged them for last year’s discarded sparrow’s nests 
brought from the tufts of pampas grass. The linnets adopted 
these black substitutes for their own nests of lighter color and 
rarer beauty, never once objecting seriously, and have brought 
off two broods. We have proved that the linnet is capable of 
domestication, and some day may see it corraled behind woven 
wire, hatching broilers, and producing eggs at 15 cents a dozen. 
They do not mind the taking of their eggs, providing a nest 
egg is left, and a linnet hen wflll take the young of her 
neighbor just hatched in exchange for her own full fledged dar¬ 
lings, and bring them up to the best of her ability”. Indeed we 
have kept a pair of linnets engaged in the occupation of wet- 
nursing for a prolonged period by thus “ swapping ” the young. 
In the matter of domestic felicity no human couple could be so 
