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Indeed, this bird seems incapable of uttering a harsh note, or of doing a spiteful, ill-tempered thing. The ground-builders all have some art or device to decoy one away from the nest, affecting lameness, a crippled wing, or a broken back, promising an easy capture if pursued. The tree-builders depend upon concealing the nest or placing it beyond reach.
Ground-builders often get up into a bush, and tree-builders sometimes get upon the ground or into a tussock of grass. The song sparrow, which is a ground builder, has been known to build in the knothole of a fence rail; and a chimney swallow once got tired of soot and smoke, and fastened its nest on a rafter in a hay barn.
Philosophers do not yet know how a backward-falling cat turns in the air, but turn she does. It may be that the woodpecker never quite relaxes his hold, though to my eye he appears to do so. Birds nearly always pass the night in such places as they select for their nests, ground-builders upon the ground, tree-builders upon trees.
Though generally regular in their habits and instincts, yet the birds sometimes seem as whimsical and capricious as superior beings. One is not safe, for instance, in making any absolute assertion as to their place or mode of building. Ground-builders often get up into a bush, and tree-builders sometimes get upon the ground or into a tussock of grass.
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