THE SLEEPING-PLACES OF BIRDS. 
IT IS difficult to imagine a spot with 
fewer domestic features to adorn 
the home than a piece of the bare 
ceiling of atropical veranda; butthe 
attachment of animals to their chosen 
sleeping-places must rest on some pref- 
erence quite clear to their own con- 
sciousness, though not evident to us. 
In some instances the ground of choice 
is intelligible. Many of the small blue 
British Butterflies have grayish spotted 
backs to their wings. At night they 
fly regularly to sheltered corners on 
the chalk downs where they live, alight 
head downwards on the tops of the 
grasses which there flourish, and clos- 
ing and lowering their wings as far as 
possible, look exactly like seed-heads 
on the grasses. If the night is cold 
they creep down the stem and sleep in 
shelter among the thick lower growth 
of grass. The habits of birds in regard 
to sleep are very unlike, some being 
extremely solicitous to be in bed in 
good time, while others are awake and 
about all night. But among the former 
the sleeping-place is the true home, 
the domus et penetralia. It has nothing 
necessarily in common with the nest, 
and birds, like some other animals and 
many human beings, often prefer com- 
plete isolation at this time. They want 
a bedroom to themselves. Sparrows, 
which appear to go to roost in com- 
panies, and sometimes do so, after a 
vast amount of talk and fuss, do not 
rest cuddled up against one another, 
like Starlings or Chickens, but have 
private holes and corners to sleep in. 
They are fond of sleeping in the sides 
of straw-ricks, but each Sparrow has 
its own little hollow among the straws, 
just as each of a flock of sleeping 
Larks makes its own "cubicle" on the 
ground. A London Sparrow for two 
years occupied a sleeping-home almost 
as bare of furniture as the ceiling which 
the East Indian Butterfly frequented. 
It came every night in winter to sleep 
on a narrow ledge under the portico of 
a house in Onslow Square. Above was 
the bare white-washed top of the por- 
tico, there were no cosy corners, and 
at eighteen inches from the Sparrow 
was the gas-lit portico lamp. There 
every evening it slept, and guests leav- 
ing the house seldom failed to look up 
and see the little bird fast asleep in its 
enormous white bedroom. Its regular 
return during two winters is evidence 
that it regarded this as its home; but 
why did it choose this particular por- 
tico in place of a hundred others in 
the same square? — Spectator. 
Bird Courtships. — When he (the 
Flicker) wishes to charm his sweet- 
heart he mounts a very small twig near 
her, so that his foreparts shall not be 
hidden as he sits upright in regular 
Woodpecker attitude, and he lifts his 
wings, spreads his tail, and begins to 
nod right and left as he exhibits his 
mustache to his charmer, and sets his 
jet locket first on one side of the twig 
and then the other. He may even go 
so far as to turn his head half around 
to show her the pretty spot on his 
"back hair." In doing all this he per- 
forms the most ludicrous antics, and 
has the silliest of expressions of face 
and voice, as if in losing his heart, as 
some one phrases it, he has lost his 
head also. For days after she has evi- 
dently said yes, he keeps it up to as- 
sure her of his devotion, and, while 
sitting crosswise on a limb, a sudden 
movement of hers, or even a noise 
made by one passing, will set him to 
nodding from side to side. To all 
this she usually responds in kind. — 
Baskett. 
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