270 THE UNIVERSE. 



rustic architects was brought alive to the Zoological Gar- 

 dens at London. It was placed in a large room surrounded 

 by all the materials necessary for its edifice, but the poor 

 bird made a very sorry affair of it ; the air and sun of its 

 country were wanting, and, above all, it had no companion. 

 Its spirit was gone. When I saw it, to plant a few branches 

 irregularly in a heap of stones and earth which it had col- 

 lected was as much as it could do. 



CHAPTER VI. 



NAVAL ARCHITECTURE. 



Many very inexact statements have been made about the 

 naval architecture of certain birds. Fiction has dethroned 

 truth, and yet the latter is infinitely more interesting than 

 the tales which have been substituted for it. 



One of the most hardy inhabitants of our fens, the water 

 hen (Fulica chloropus), awakens surprise by the form and 

 elegance of the nest which she plants sometimes near the 

 edge of the water, sometimes on its surface. In the former 

 case these nests are so many little altars raised above the 

 ground, and covered over by an arbor of reeds, the bent 

 leaves of which form an elegant little vault of verdure above 

 the brood. In other cases, floating on the surface of some 

 pond and almost totally concealed from sight by a hedge of 

 young reeds, they have the entrance, by a peculiarity met 

 with nowhere else, adorned with a long train of reeds, slop- 

 ing from the edge of the nest into the water, and forming a 



