CURIOSITIES OF WILD LIFE. 63 



I placed the old tin can figured on page 

 65 against the trunk of a tree growing in a 

 wood containing thousands of eligible sites, and 

 yet a blackbird came and built in it. If her 

 idea was one of safety, she was mistaken, for 

 some enemy sucked all her eggs. 



Again, it is difficult to conceive why a pair of 

 swallows made their nest in the old shoe shown 

 in our combination page of pictures, seeing that 

 there were plenty of better situations available 

 in the same boatshed. 



At the house where the nest photographed 

 on a bell fastenings was secured, another pair of 

 swallows reared a brood in one which they built 

 on the frame of a picture hanging in an occupied 

 bedroom, the windows of which were left open 

 night and day. 



The shallow structure with a large chick in it 

 was built on a ceiling lath which had become 

 detached at one end, and was so pliant that it 

 swayed up and down like the slender branch of 

 a tree. Here the swallows had every excuse for 

 their selection, because the store-room contained 

 no other available site. 



The house martin's hemispherical nest also 

 figured on the same page is of considerable in- 

 terest to ornithologists, because it has been 

 asserted that the bird never builds a structure of 

 this shape. It is very difficult to understand 



