Identifier: birdsnature111902chic (find matches)
Title: Birds and nature
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds Natural history
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : A.W. Mumford, Publisher
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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or-gotten ; little friendships never broken.Berton Mercer. TWO STRANGE HOMES. The little brown wren is a bird withwhich most of us are familiar, as it isone of our most common birds. It buildsits nest in all sorts of odd places, ven-turing about barns, outhouses, or eventhe homes of men. One summer a ball of twine left overfrom the liarvesting was placed upon ashelf in our tool-house. The next springa pair of tiny wrens discovered it andselected it as a suita1-)le nesting place.Thev ))nih llie coziest and softest of homes in the hole in the center of thebig ball and several eggs were laid be-fore we discovered it. It was then leftto the birds who had taken possessionof it and they were allowed to raise theirfamily there in peace. At another time a jxair of wrens builttheir nest in the sleeve of an old coatwhich had been left hanging in a shedand they made what, at least to them,was cjuite a palatial abcnle in that whichsuperior man had deemed unfit for use.^(.\KV McCrai-: Cri.Ti:R. 32
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4G2 ( ; i; IilA LAND W 1 1 Al ,!■lli.il.icu.i, iu.v :.lit-t^l,us). PVRIOMT 1»01, Br ». W. THE GREENLAND WHALE. (Balaena mysticetus.) The whale is by far the largest animalon earth, some species being many timesthe size of an elephant, and is it nota curious fact that in appearance it soresembles a fish that many suppose itto belong?- to that class, while truly it isnot a fish at all? It is in reality muchmore like a cow or a horse, althoughexternally it seems very unlike these ani-mals ; but appearances are not always tobe relied upon. When we examine the construction ofthe whale wx find that it is warm-blooded,as we are. We find that it has immenselungs which hold a great quantity ofair and that it must fill them or die. Wefind that it has bones similar to those ofland animals. It has the seven neckbones found in all mammals, but it isthe opposite extreme from the girafife,as in proportion to its size it has theshortest neck of any mammal, while thegiraffe has the longest. It has

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