NIDIFICA TION 63 1 



plants form of them a rude half-floating mass which is piled on some 

 growing water-weed — but these birds do not spurn the duties of 

 maternity. Many of the Gulls, Sandpipers, and Plovers lay their 

 eggs in a shallow pit which they hollow out in the soil, and then as 

 incubation proceeds add thereto a low breastwork of haulm. The 

 Ringed Plover commonly places its eggs on shingle, which they so 

 much resemble in colour ; but when breeding on grassy uplands it 

 paves the nest-hollow with small stones. Pigeons mostly make an 

 artless platform of sticks so loosely laid together that their pearly 

 treasures may be perceived from beneath by the inquisitive observer. 

 The Pie, as though conscious that its own thieving habits may be 

 imitated by its neighbours, surrounds its nest with a hedge of thorns. 

 Very many birds of very diff"erent groups bore holes in some sandy 

 cliff, and at the end of their tunnel deposit their eggs with or with- 

 out bedding. Such bedding, too, is very various in character; 

 thus, while the Sheld- DRAKE and the Sand -Martin supply the 

 softest of materials, — the one of down from her own body, the other 

 of feathers collected by dint of diligent search, — the Kingfisher 

 forms in the course of incubation a couch of the undigested spiny 

 fish-bones which she ejects in pellets from her own stomach. Other 

 birds, as the WOODPECKERS, hew holes in living trees, even when 

 the timber is of considerable hardness, and therein establish their 

 nursery. Some of the SwiFTS secrete from their salivary glands 

 a fluid which rapidly hardens as it dries on exposure to the air 

 into a substance resembling isinglass, and thus furnish the " edible 

 birds' nests" that are the delight of Chinese epicures. In the 

 architecture of nearly all the Passeres, too, some salivary secretion 

 seems to play an important part. By its aid they are enabled to 

 moisten and bend the otherwise refractory twigs and straws and 

 glue them to their place. Spiders' webs also are employed with 

 great advantage for the purpose last mentioned, but perhaps chiefly 

 to attach fragments of moss and lichen so as to render the whole 

 structure less obvious to the eye of the spoiler. The Tailor-bird 

 deliberately spins a thread, and therewith sews together the edges 

 of a pair of leaves to make a receptacle for its nest; while the 

 Fantail Warbler, by a similar process of stitching — even making 

 a knot at the end of the thread — unites as a sheltering canopy 

 above its nest the upper ends of the grass stems amid Avhich it is 

 built. Beautiful too is the felt fabricated of fur or hairs by the 

 various species of Titmouse, while many birds ingeniously weave 

 into a compact mass both animal and vegetable fibres, forming an 

 admirable non-conducting medium which guards the eggs from the 

 extremes of temperature outside. Such a structure may be open 

 and cup-shaped, supported from below as that of the Chaffinch and 



and that of a nest of Fulica atra to be 61°, while the maximum temperature of the 

 air that day was 58° Fahr. 



