Again, these swallows have the knack of carrying a little water on the feathers of their breasts, I think, and give the structure a shower-like wetting from time to time. At last the structure “sets” and is practically permanent. There are birds that build no nests, like the kill-deer plover and the woodcock, and yet they exercise a faculty of equal value intellectually; for to be able to locate a spot that will be in the least degree exposed to danger is a power of no mean grade. The kill-deer will place its eggs on sloping ground, but somehow the heaviest dashes of rain do not wash out that particular spot. There are sand-pipers that lay their eggs on a bit of dead grass, just out of reach of the highest tides. As we look at such _nests_, we conclude that the birds trust a great deal to good luck; but, as a matter of fact, the destruction of eggs when in no nests, or next to none, is very small. Why, on the other hand, woodpeckers should go to such an infinity of trouble to whittle a nest in the firm tissue of a living tree, when a natural hollow would serve as well, is a problem past finding out. I have even seen a woodpecker make a new nest in a tree which already contained one in every respect as good. Going back to the fields and thickets, it will be seen that birds, as a rule, desire that their nests should be inconspicuous, and their efforts are always largely in this direction in the construction. The foliage of the tree or bush is considered, and when not directly concealed by this, the nest is made to look marvellously like a natural production of the vegetable world, as the beautiful nest of our wood pee-wee or the humming-bird shows. These nests are then not merely the homes of young birds, but are places of defence against a host of enemies. The parent birds have no simple task set before them that can be gone through with mechanically year after year. Every season new problems arise, if their favorite haunts suffer change, and every year the birds prove equal to their solution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER FIFTH _CORN-STALK FIDDLES_ ------------------------------------------------------------------------