232 GOSSIP ABOUT BIRDS’ NESTS.

and splashings and rotatings of the paddle-wheel; the
steamer was accompanied in its continuous flittings to
and fro; eggs were laid, young were nurtured, and all
went smoothly in this bit of the robins’ voyage of life,
however tossed or wave-beat the shelter of their tempo-
rary nest-home may have been.

But I am unwilling to be drawn away from the subject
of birds’ nests structurally considered. I never see the
nest of a chaffinch, of a long-tail titmouse, of a common
wren—to specify no others—without a quiet consciousness
of pleasure and gratification. Each of those nests is in
itself such a beautiful object, the skill and ingenuity
displayed in the structure are so great and so evident, the
power of adjustment or adaptation possessed by the little
builders is so distinct, that one cannot notice them fairly
without admiring; and it is admiration there is nothing
to detract from or qualify, no jealousy, no wish to
depreciate, no sense of personal inferiority. “ Mar-
yellous,” says Mr. Stevenson, and no word was ever
truer, “marvellous is that structure of moss, lichens, and
feathers, a perfect triumph of skill and industry, which
we find built by the long-tailed titmouse into our fences
and bushes, as well as on the branches of trees; and so
securely placed, that it is necessary to cut out the portion
of the bush containing it if you wish to preserve the
appearance and form of the nest. I have seen them built
into gooseberry and currant bushes, with twigs passing
through and supporting them,” as if part of the structure.
“Frequently as I have examined these ‘feather pokes,’
as they are aptly termed, I have, however, never observed
the second aperture described by some authors,” and it
eertainly is wonderful what the old bird does with her

‘long tail, and especially when she broods twelve or fourteen

young featherless nestlings in the early part of their life.
“Feather pokes,’ indeed! One of them has been found
to contain the moderate number of 2379 feathers of
various kinds.

The nest of the common wren, if less obtrusively
striking, in a certain sense, than that just named, is still
one of the most interesting from the singularly varying
sense and power of adaptation evidenced by the tiny arti-
ficer. I have seen them in the moss covered bank, or
partly abutting on the clay; in a hole bya grey lichen-
covered stone, or one that was green over with moss; by
the boll of a tree, gnarled, blotched, or decayed; in the
side of the hay-stack, or straw-heap, or haulm-wall;
built to fill a rounded cavity, or to abut upon a flat
surface at one end; and in every case the adjustment
and adaptation were perfect. You saw no green moss
introduced into the surface of the nest where the site was
grey, or the surrounding material hay or straw. Neither
was there grey lichen or bleached hay amid the green
moss of the bank or tree stump. Nay, even in the same
nest, a species of artistic shading, if I may so express it,
has been seen. Abutting on a grey stone at one end, on

"a moss-covered surface at the other, it was hard to

tell where the grey and the green material severally
ended, so wonderfully were they toned down and mingled
at last each with the other, so that no one but a cunning
nest-hunter would have suspected the presence of bird-
work there. And then, the delicacy of the felting, the
compactness of the fabric, the nice symmetry of each
part, the perfect “button-hole stitching” of the small
round orifice, all add to the general impression of pure
fitness and beauty.

Mr. Stevenson speaks of one nest of this species as,
“the most singular and beautiful he ever saw.” Yet the
quaintness of the situation seems rather to strike on the
yeader’s mind, more than the idea of real and actual
beauty, as the eye runs over the account. It was built
among the leaves of a savoy cabbage. “ Formed entirely
of moss, this exquisite little structure was so placed as to
rest firmly against one leaf, whilst another hung pendant
over the top; and in places the moss was drawn through
these green supports, as though the beaks of the archi-
tects had stitched them together.” But unlooked for as
a savoy cabbage for nest-site may be, it utterly yields in
strangeness or quaintness to some of the places and
objects recorded as having been selected by some bird or
other to build its nest in or upon. Thus a dead jackdaw
was placed in a nut-shrub in an orchard, back downwards,
Decay having run its course, a pair of fly-catchers chose
what was left “as a site for their nest, in the early part of
May last, and hatched and reared their young. ‘The nest
was composed of wool, moss, a few hairs, &c., and was
quite sunk in the body.” Even this is not an unique
case, for dear old Gilbert White mentions a swallow’s nest
as built “on the wings and body of an owl that happened
by accident to hang dead and dry from the rafters of
a barn.” Another nest of the same kind of birds
was built on the knocker of a gentleman’s house in
Warwicxshire, where the parent bird sat, hatched, and
reared her young. When the door was opened, as it very
frequently was in the course of the day, the bird left her
nest for an instant, but returned to it as soon as the door
was shut. But even this bird was outdone by a pair of
blue tits which built their nest “in the interior of a door-
post forming part of the back entrance to a house. On
the inner side of the door-post was the usual brass plate
with three square openings for the lock, bolt, and sneck to
shoot into. Through the largest of these, the wood-work
having rotted away, the birds obtained access to their
nesting-place. The materials were carried in bit by bit,
regardless of the constant passing to and fro of the ser-
vants, The most singular thing, however, was the fact
that the door, though open during the day, was always
locked at night, thus shutting in the little tenants with-
out a chance of escape until morning, the lock itself
filling up the only possible exit. In this place, in spite
of every drawback, these little creatures managed to hatch
and bring off their young quite safely.” In bottles, ina
letter-box on a door with the slit opening on the stweet,
in a flower-pot, under a flower-pot, in a flower-pot saucer,
in a sea-kale pot, in an “ eke,” or spare bit above a bee
hive, on a shelf in an out-house, between two boxes on 2
shelf, in an old shoe on a shelf, or in a box in the same
place,—there really is no end to the strange and quaint
places in which birds of various sorts have been known to
build. But instead of seeking further instances of the
kind, I will only mention one or two remarkable instances
of special contrivance and adaptation afforded in the nest-
making proceedings of some feathered friend or other.
A swallow had selected a corner or angle between two
walls of an outhouse in which to build. But there was
no ledge or projection on which to rest or found her
structure. The bird therefore, with some of the clay she
knew so well how to temper, formed a ledge or bracket on
each wall a short distance from the extreme angle, and
on these brackets laid a stick in a horizontal position
across the corner. This stick with the aid of the walls,

se ll LET