The morning call., 1894-07-06
BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS.
The Belief That They Use Them but
One Season Is Wrong.

In rookery near Bristol il was noticed that
particular pair OF old birds continued TO visit
their nest long after all other broods had flown.
man climbed the tall elm and found full
grown rook so hrmly held by some string In the
lining OF the nest that it had no hope OF escape,
Lowell reckoned among his immortal Garden
Acquaintance" two buejays which his knife
delivered from similar captivity. "The third,
IN It's struggles TO escape had so much harmed
Itself that thought it humane" he says. $50
put an eud to Its misery" S oder still is the
fate that sometimes befalls a whole brood OF
swallows or martins, hatched so late iu the
year tnat, when their parents go. they are left
behind TO perish miserably In the forsaken
nest, 1t Is comforting to reflect that their fral
bodies could not long hold out against the keen
air of November.
BY most birds the nest Is occupied only for
Drlei space In the year. 1t Is more of nursery
than livingroom. Yet the Spanish proverb is
not wholly true that That there are no birds
IN last years nest" There are a good many
that use the same framework year after year:
repairing it, no doubt at least refining it, but
II Is the same nest. Ii rocks do sometimes re-
oulld from the foundation il seems as If the ma
lority were content TO repair what the storms
sparrows certainly often use the old nest
again, and some Of them probably in
nabit the family mansion all the year. King
hShers have been known to resort to the same
noie in tne DaDk for years together. And ihere
Is case on record in which hole was lnhab-
ited by pair OF woodpeckers or their de-
seendants for thirty years at a stretch. The
1ycatcher, 100, Is very constant 10 her old
haunts, and will come back to the old spot and
repair the old nest for many successive. years.
We all know how the swallow returns year
AFTER year TO Der nest among the rafters, and
the martin TO her old home beneath the ewes.
Sand martins. too, come back without fail TO
the bank OF the river, and when they are OBJ.
served to begin fresh tunnel it Is, perhaps
more because the old quarters have been rem
dered untenable by sWarms OF fieas than from
any great hankeriDg after better view or
drier situation.
The most extraordinary case of all, probably.
IS that OF the blue tits which built their nests III
bottle hung In tree TO drain, in garden
near Stockton on-TeeS, in the year 1885. Their
tenancy. or that OF their descendants, lasted
with Two short intervals only, for close on
ninety years. But many birds, the majority, no
doubt, have no such dwellings TO resort to- and
IN these hard times, when darkness begins TO
settle down over the landscape, are fain TO
creep away into the shelter of ivy ana ever
green's, into roofs and stacks and hollow trees.
But even those that make no nest at all come
back year after year TO the same spot to The
same solitary corner OF the upland pasture, the
same ledge OF rock, the same stretch of shelter
less Shingle. The ringed plover will stay all
the year within cry Of the beach where, just
above hlgh-water mark, she will lay her four
great eggs in little hollow among the peb-
bles.-London Daily News.