ars.

The key to the behavior of the birds in this respect may be found in the
Darwinian theory of natural selection. From the first settlement of the
country a few of the common birds, attracted by a more suitable or more
abundant food-supply, or other conditions, must inevitably have nested
near human dwellings. These birds would thrive better and succeed in
bringing off more young than those that nested in more exposed places.
Hence, their progeny would soon be in the ascendancy. All animals seem
to have associated memory. These birds would naturally return to the
scenes and conditions of their youth, and start their nests there. It
would not be confidence in men that would draw them; rather would the
truth be that the fear of man is inadequate to overcome or annul this
home attraction.

The catbird does not come to our vines on the veranda to nest from
considerations of safety, but because her line of descent runs through
such places. The catbirds and robins and phoebe-birds that were reared
far from human habitations doubtless return to such localities to rear
their young. The home sense in birds is strong. I have positive proof in
a few instances of robins and song sparrows returning successive years
to the same neighborhood. It is very certain, I think, that the
phoebe-birds that daub our porches with their mud, and in July leave
a trail of minute creeping and crawling pests, were not themselves
hatched and reared in the pretty, moss-covered structure under the
shelving rocks in the woods, or on the hillsides.

How different from the manners of the robins are the manners of a pair
of catbirds that have a nest in the honeysuckle against the side of the
first-floor sleeping-porch! Nothing seems farther from the nature of the
catbird than the hue and cry which the robin at times sets up. The
catbird is sly and dislikes publicity. An appealing feline _mew_ is her
characteristic note. She never raises her voice like the town-crier, as
the robin does, perched in the mean time where all eyes may behold him.
The catbird peers and utters her soft protest from her hiding-place in
the bushes. This particular pair of catbirds appeared in early May and
began slyly to look over the situation in the vines and bushes about the
house. All their proceedings were very stealthy; they were like two dark
shadows gliding about, avoiding observation--no tree-tops or house-tops
for them, but coverts close to the ground. We hoped they w