It has but little to unlearn or to forget in the one case, but great
progress to make in the other. How far is its rudimentary nest--a mere
platform of coarse twigs and dry stalks of weeds--from the deep,
compact, finely woven and finely modeled nest of the goldfinch or
king-bird, and what a gulf between its indifference toward its young
and their solicitude! Its irregular manner of laying also seems better
suited to a parasite like our cow-bird, or the European cuckoo, than to
a regular nest-builder.
This observer, like most sharp-eyed persons, sees plenty of interesting
things as he goes about his work. He one day saw a white swallow,
which is of rare occurrence. He saw a bird, a sparrow he thinks, fly
against the side of a horse and fill his beak with hair from the
loosened coat of the animal. He saw a shrike pursue a chickadee, when
the latter escaped by taking refuge in a small hole in a tree. One day
in early spring he saw two hen-hawks that were circling and screaming
high in air, approach each other, extend a claw, and, clasping them
together, fall toward the earth flapping and struggling as if they were
tied together; on nearing the ground they separated and soared aloft
again.
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