extended, as if anxious to hold the offensive object as far from its
plumage as possible, the bird dropped the unsavory morsel in the
course of a few yards, and, alighting on a tree, wiped its bill on
the bark and moss. This seems to be the order all day,--carrying in
and carrying out. I watched the birds for an hour, while my
companions were taking their turn in exploring the lay of the land
around us, and noted no variation in the programme. It would be
curious to know if the young are fed and waited upon in regular
order, and how, amid the darkness and the crowded state of the
apartment, the matter is so neatly managed. But ornithologists are
all silent upon the subject.

This practice of the birds is not so uncommon as it might at first
seem. It is indeed almost an invariable rule among all land birds.
With woodpeckers and kindred species, and with birds that burrow in
the ground, as bank swallows, king-fishers, etc., it is a necessity.
The accumulation of the excrement in the nest would prove most fatal
to the young.

But even among birds that neither bore nor mine, but which build a
shallow nest on the branch of a tree or upon the ground, as the
robin, the finches, the buntings, etc., the ordure of the young is
removed to a distance by the parent bird. When the robin is seen
going away from its brood with a slow, heavy flight, entirely
different from its manner a moment before on approaching the nest
with a cherry or worm, it is certain to be engaged in this office.
One may observe the social sparrow, when feeding its young, pause a
moment after the worm has been given and hop around on the brink of
the nest observing the movements within.

The instinct of cleanliness no doubt prompts the action in all
cases, though the disposition to secrecy or concealment may not be
unmixed with it.

The swallows form an exception to the rule, the excrement being
voided by the young over the brink of the nest. They form an
exception, also, to the rule of secrecy, aiming not so much to
conceal the nest as to render it inaccessible.

Other exceptions are the pigeons, hawks, and water-fowls.

But to return. Having a good chance to note the color and markings
of the woodpeckers as they passed in and out at the opening of the
nest, I saw that Audubon had made a mistake in figuring or
describing the female of this species with the red spot upon the
head. I have seen a number of pairs of them, and in no instance have
I seen