Some Remarkable Nests and Eggs. 33 



before ? Four beautiful blue eggs, spotted with 

 black, just as if some careless schoolboy had made 

 his pen sputter ink over them. I can, in fancy, 

 still hear the old mother Throstle scolding me in 

 loud, angry notes from the branches of an elm tree 

 close by for daring to intrude upon her domestic 

 arrangements. 



Since that day I have wandered over the greater 

 portion of the British Isles in search of birds' nests, 

 not in the hope of robbing and spoiling, but that 

 my brother's camera might figure them and their 

 contents exactly where they were placed by their 

 owners. During the course of my rambles I have 

 seen specimens of nearly every bird's nest that is 

 built in this country, and I propose in this and 

 the next chapter to relate some of the most 

 interesting things about them and the eggs they 

 contained. 



Birds' nests are truly wonderful things, and do 

 very great credit in many instances to their builders ; 

 but it is absurd for poets to say that a man with 

 '' tv/enty years' apprenticeship," and all the tools 

 which science has placed within his reach, could 

 make nothing of a similar kind which would not 

 be put to shame by our feathered friends. Man is 

 and will ever remain by far the cleverest and most 

 wonderful creature on the face of the earth, and it 

 is much better to teach or learn the truth than to 

 delude ourselves or others by exaggerations against 

 which reason rebels. 



D 



