earing the sweet, hostile strains, would burst forth
instantly itself,--and here there was no certain mark of
appreciation,--yet sometimes, perhaps quite as often, it would put its
head on one side and listen with exactly the appearance of a musical
connoisseur, weighing, testing, and appraising each note as it issued
from the rival bill. A curious, half-suppressed expression would
steal, or seem to steal (for Fancy may play her part in such matters),
over the listening bird, and the idea appear to be, 'How exquisite
would be those strains were they not sung by ----, and yet I must
admit that they are exquisite.'" Fancy no doubt does play a part in
such matters. It may well be doubted if birds are musical
connoisseurs, or have anything like human appreciation of their own or
of each other's songs. My reason for thinking so is this: I have heard
a bobolink with an instrument so defective that its song was broken
and inarticulate in parts, and yet it sang with as much apparent joy
and abandon as any of its fellows. I have also heard a hermit thrush
with a similar defect or impediment that appeared to sing entirely to
its own satisfaction. It would be very interesting to know if these
poor singers found mates as readily as their more gifted brothers. If
they did, the Darwinian theory of "sexual selection" in such matters,
according to which the finer songster would carry off the female,
would fall to the ground. Yet it is certain that it is during the
mating and breeding season that these "song combats" occur, and the
favor of the female would seem to be the matter in dispute. Whether or
not it be expressive of actual jealousy or rivalry, we have no other
words to apply to it.

A good deal of light is thrown upon the ways of nature as seen in the
lives of our solitary wasps, so skillfully and charmingly depicted by
George W. Peckham and his wife in their work on those insects. So
whimsical, so fickle, so forgetful, so fussy, so wise, and yet so
foolish, as these little people are! such victims of routine and yet
so individual, such apparent foresight and yet such thoughtlessness,
at such great pains and labor to dig a hole and build a cell, and then
at times sealing it up without storing it with food or laying the egg,
half finishing hole after hole, and then abandoning them without any
apparent reason; sometimes killing their spiders, at other times only
paralyzing them; one species digging its burrow before it captures i