REMARKABLE INSTANCES OF NIDIFICATION. 



The instance recorded by me, in a former number, of the eccentric nidifica- 

 tion of a Wren (Anorthura) having elicited a singular parallel from another Cor- 

 respondent (see page 181), I shall give a few more occurrences of a similar nature 

 and equally interesting. I may here state; in reply to that Correspondent, that 

 the nest of the Chimney Swallow (Hirundo garrula, Blyth), appropriated too 

 unceremoniously by the noisy little Wren, was built in an outhouse, and it was so 

 constructed that the feathered tenants could only just enter by the space left 

 between the upper part of the front wall of the nest and the ceiling of the shed. 



In the hall of my former residence, Chimney Swallows attempted to build in 

 the upper corners of the walls, for several years successively, making use of the 

 ceiling instead of laboriously constructing the costly dome of the Rose Muflin 

 ( Mecistura rosea).* So unweariedly did these nature-taught architects ply 

 their hod and mortar that they contrived to advance far in their " temples not 

 made with hands" before much attention had been attracted by their journeys 

 backwards and forwards. The vigilant eyes of the house-maids — a class of per- 

 sons, by the bye, who are most of them destructives — were speedily directed 

 towards the procreant cradles of my little favourites, and they were destroyed. 

 Nothing daunted, the Swallows renewed their attempts at establishing their in-door 

 colony, working like so many masons ; but it was all labour in vain. I would 

 willingly have marked the lintels of the entrances, that the destroyer might pass 

 by ; but the unlucky Swallows were apt to get into a sky-light, which proved as 

 fatal to them as was Doubting Castle of Giant Despair, in the Pilgrims Pro- 

 gress, to the unfortunate mortals who entered in thereat. I, therefore, had the 

 door closed till the mania was over. 



I have noticed several other rather strange choices of places for building ma- 

 nifested by birds ; and as the feathered bipeds have no Architectural Magazine, 

 their choice of a site may be determined by caprice rather than by fixed principles. 

 I refer the reader to page 513 of the Field Naturalist's Magazine for a very 

 remarkable instance of attachment to its nest manifested by a Garden Willet 

 (Sylvia melodia, Blyth). I have known a similar instance of attachment to home 

 in the Noisy Willet ( Sylvia loquax, Herbert) ; and though the nest in this in- 

 stance was certainly not " made a complete ruin by a flock of Ducks," yet it was 

 sufficiently damaged to afford abundant apology for desertion. I have witnessed 

 the nests of the Common Redstart ( Rulicilla lusciniaj, the Robin Redbreast 

 ( Rubecula familiaris ) , and several other common birds, in extraordinary situa- 

 tions, which, at some future time, I may probably describe. 



C. T. Wood. 



* Longtailed Tit and Pants caudatus of old authors : Leach has very properly consti- 

 tuted a new genus for the reception of this species and its congeners. The Muscicapa luc- 

 tnom of old authors I propose to call the Pied Collet (Apliedula lucluosaj. 



