nests found deserted were abandoned for some other reason. More likely
that the deficiency of insect food caused by the inclement weather
weakened the parent. Sometimes these harmless and useful birds are
cruelly shot. I have never seen a nest injured by heats; on the contrary,
I should imagine that heat would cause the mortar to cohere more firmly,
and that damp would be much more likely to make it unsafe. At house No. 2
the heat in the angle of the two walls was scarcely bearable on a July
day. If a nest were taken down and put in an oven I should doubt if it
would crack. In nature, however, everything depends on locality. The
roads in that locality were mended with flint, and the mortar from
puddles appeared to make good cement. Possibly in some districts there
may be no lime or silicon, and the mortar the birds use may be less
adherent. The more one studies nature the more one becomes convinced that
it is an error to suppose things proceed by a regular rule always
applicable everywhere. All creatures change their habits with
circumstances; consequently no observation can be accepted as final.




AMONG THE NUTS.



The nuts are ripening once more, and it is almost the time to go
a-gipsying--the summer passes like the shadow of a cloud which strikes
the edge of the yellow wheat and comes over and is gone; it does not give
you time to rub out a single ear of corn. Before it is possible to gather
the harvest of thought and observation the summer has passed, and we must
bind the hastily stitched book with the crimson leaves of autumn. Under