William Henry Mousley

“ There the female hatches out her eggs, and afterwards attends and protects the young without any assistance from the male whatsoever. As regards the Red-winged Blackbirds and Bobolinks, I can only state that so far as my experience goes I have never seen the males of either species engaged in any nest building, nor have I been able to detect any behaviour on their part, which might be construed as assisting the females in selecting a suitable spot for the nest. ”

“ I would suggest they come for the purpose of selecting some area of ground over which they can hold sway, in other words they nominally select the general nesting site, to which the females may come either accidentally, or as is most probably the case (especially with the warblers) , by hearing the males singing from their favourite trees or other posts, which also act as look-out stations, from which they can sally forth and drive all other interlopers away. ”

“ First one bird goes in and inspects a hole, then the other proceeds to do the same thing, and on coming out it often appears as though a weighing up of the pros and cons were taking place, but unless one is able to follow them about until the final hole is decided upon, it seems almost impossible to form any adequate idea which sex eventually decides the matter. ”

“ I think judging from my own experience, and that of others, it may safely be assumed that the males of this most interesting family, in the majority of cases, have little if anything to do with the actual selection of the final spot on which the nest shall rest, the females in nearly all cases performing this duty as well as that of constructing the nest. ”

“ In these two instances it would appear as though the final selection was entirely a mutual one, which might have been expected, seeing that both sexes take part in the construction of the nest, the same as the Bluebirds. Now in the case of a large majority of the warblers this is not so, or at least, it has not been apparent in those which have come under my observation, for the males rarely seem to take any very active part or interest, either in the construction or exact location of the nest. ”

“ Immediately on arrival the males take up their stations, the first named on the marsh, (where they are usually found early in the morning and late in the afternoon, the rest of the day being spent in the adjacent stubble fields) and the latter on certain meadows just in front of my house, and there later on, as well as on the marsh in the case of the Red-winged Blackbirds, will the nests be surely found, thus clearly indicating. ”

“ Now this at first sight may seem contrary to all pre-conceived ideas on the subject, for I believe we have all come, in a hazy kind of way, to look upon the female as the principal actor in this site selecting business, whereas I would suggest that it is really the male who stands out as the dominant figure. ”

“ This may partly account for the fact that when birds are robbed of their first, second, or even third set of eggs, they invariably build another nest in close proximity to the old one, as pointed out in my paper "A Study of Subsequent Nestings." ”

“ This being so, I have come to the conclusion that the females of both species, being the constructors of the nests, are likewise the selectors of the exact spots for them to rest in, although these be it remembered have always been on the ground which the male birds had selected to congregate and sing upon long before the arrival of the females. ”