An Island Eden 181
doubtless would not have succeeded in rearing its family. But in an environment where bird enemies are happily absent, the groundebuilding birds are as safe as thOSe neSting in the [teeetops Environment. then, is the mold in which habit is cast. Indeed, the ground»builders are in less danger than those birds which build true to type, since the trees to which. year after year, the birds come may fall, with consequent disaster to the nest. When the nest is placed in a small cedar it eventually becomes larger than its support, which often gives way beneath it, The birds then
I’HOTOGRAI’HING A FISHVHA\\|\ 1mm x. 19m
evince their attachment to a certain spot by constructing a new home in the ruins of the old one.
One pair of Fish-hawks had placed a cart-load of sticks and sea- weed. constituting the greater part of their building material, on the roof of a small ‘yoke-house’ standing well out in a field, which, when I first saw it, was green with young ryel This house was evidently the only place offering concealment from which the bird might be photographed on its home, A camera was therefore erected some forty feet away, a tube run to the house, and I entered what was. in a sense, the subcellar of the structure above, sending my assistant to a neighboring ridge, whence he was to warn me of the bird's return. Time after time, umler these con? ditions, the bird Came back within a minute of my companion’s departure: but, when going alone to photograph her, in the same manner, on the following day. she showed the utmost caution in returning to her inter-
