Identifier: birdstudiesaccou00scot (find matches)
Title: Bird studies; an account of the land birds of eastern North America
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Scott, William Earl Dodge, 1852-1910
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: New York and London, G. P. Putnam's sons
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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ion ofmany recently abandoned nests where broods of singing birds have beenraised. Aside from a certain wear and settling they can scarcely be distin-guished from those newl) built. A further word in regard to the movements of very young birds seemsessential. These movements are accomplished largely by the aid of the feetand legs. At first birds rest on ///r/r entire foot to the heel. They exercisethe muscles of their legs by constantly opening and closing their feet. Thismotion is uninterrupted, save when the birds sleep. How large a factor thelinings of nests form at this period of their lives is only to be appreciated bywatching nestlings. As one foot is opened the other closes on the twigs,rootlets, or fine grasses, the bird never slipping and always sustained. In attempting to raise a brood of Blue Jays, having secured birds aboutten days old, I left them in their nest, but thinking to keep the birds cleanand free from the dirt they made, I placed a cotton cloth between the birds
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63 BLUE JAY. 64 Bird Studies. and the nest. This was frequently changed in pursuance of my idea.Three of the nestlings soon lost all use of their legs and feet, which becamebent and deformed, and the birds died in about a week, except one strongerthan the rest, who though arrested in physical development yet managed tosurvive. This result I attribute to the inability of the young ones toproperly exercise their feet and legs on the smooth unnatural surface pro-vided for them, and subsequent experience with Jays, Chats, and otheryoung birds has confirmed this opinion. It seems that one of the offices per-formed by the nest lining is to afford grasping material on which very youngbirds begin, almost at birth, to exercise their feet, by opening and closing thetoes, so as to perch and walk with them later. This applies to Woodpeckers,Owls, and other birds breeding in holes, as well as to perching birds proper,the coarse chips, rotten sawdust, and the rough character of the bottoms ofnests

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