740 APPENDIX. 



reaching the branch, I climbed a neighbouring tree, and with 

 the assistance of a long stick drew the nest near enough to 

 ascertain that it contained young. While I was thus employed, 

 the hen bird expressed great anxiety, and even flew into the 

 nest as I was drawing it towards me. The cock was much 

 more shy, and kept at a safer distance. On my going up to it 

 about a fortnight after, with a ladder, the birds all made their 

 escape. The nest was therefore taken down. It was an inch 

 or so thicker on the side next the point of the twig than on the 

 opposite side, to make up for the dip of the branch. As you 

 will see, it is composed chiefly of roots, moss, hair, and a downy 

 substance, but has no feathers in its lining." 



It may be described thus : It is regularly cup-shaped, four 

 inches and a half in diameter externally at the mouth, and two 

 inches and a quarter internally, its walls being about an inch 

 and a quarter in thickness. Externally it is composed of hypna, 

 kept together by hairs and delicate fibrous roots, the mouth 

 strengthened by slender stalks of herbaceous plants and woody 

 root-fibres. The inner layer, which is half an inch thick, is 

 composed chiefly of pappus, or seed-down, of two kinds, some 

 being simple, others plumose, densely felted and held together 

 by numerous hairs. Externally of this inner layer are several 

 downy feathers, and internally is a great number of strong 

 horse hairs, most of them black, but some white, arranged in 

 a circular manner. Intermixed with the pappus is a great 

 quantity of fine whitish scales, which on being rubbed between 

 the fingers have exactly the appearance and feeling of steatite, 

 these scales being, I believe, the remains of the tubes in which 

 the feathers of the young birds were enveloped. That the fibres 

 are pappus, and not willow-down, is apparent, both from many 

 of them being plumose, and from their attachment to the peri- 

 carps being still obvious. 



