Some Remarkable Nests and Eggs. 47 



contentedly as if she had been occupying a httle 

 cup-shaped home on a hawthorn bough. 



I could, if space would permit, multiply instances, 

 from my own experience and that of other observers, 

 of birds' nests built in all sorts of strange places. 



From curious situations for nests it is a natural 

 and easy step to pass to a consideration of uncommon 

 materials employed in their construction. 



A Heron in Xottinghamshire built a nest of 

 wire, as shown on the next page, and a Black- 

 bird in Surrey built its nest amidst a collection 

 of old fence-wire in the same season (p. 49). A 

 pair of House Sparrows in Switzerland made their 

 nests not long ago entirely from old watch-springs. 

 Chaffinches sometimes decorate the outsides of their 

 nests with bits of paper, and I once found one 

 studded all over with small pieces of an old news- 

 sheet. Kites have quite a love for bits of flannel, 

 rags, and paper w^herewith to build their nests. A 

 very strange thing once happened to a well-known 

 English naturalist in connection with this curious 

 habit of the Kite. He w^as away in some wild j)art 

 of Spain studying birds, and, on climbing to a 

 Kite's nest, was astonished to find part of an old 

 new^spaper in it containing an account of the assas- 

 sination of President Lincoln, of Avhich lamentable 

 crime he then learnt for the first time. 



Upon climbing to a nest belonging to this 

 interesting bird, away up amongst the Welsh moun- 

 tains last spring, my brother was surprised to find 



