36 A CLEVER ARCHITECT. 
ever singing, chattering, quarrelling, but never 
resting. It is a pleasant sight to watch this 
army of insect-hunters, climbing back down- 
wards, peering curiously into every crack and 
crevice under the leaves, and into the flowers. 
Concealment is of little avail to the insect; sharp 
eyes spy him out, and sharper beaks nip the 
idler, and drag him from his lair. Often a moth, 
or other winged insect, takes refuge in flight, 
when surprised in his nest; then a host of 
nimble pinions dart after the fugitive, and, spite 
of twists and turns and angular efforts to escape, 
tit or golden-crest catches him, and, descending 
to the ground, himself pursued by his fellow- 
hunters, picks off the gay wings and legs of his 
prize, then swallows the dainty but limbless morsel. 
There are few more skilful architects than 
the Golden Crest. The place selected for the 
nest is generally at the end of a pine branch, 
where, like a cradle, it is rocked by every passing 
breeze; but so ingeniously is the nest contrived, 
that, rock and swing as it may, neither eggs nor 
young cah ever be jerked out. The nest is 
tightly woven, and composed of twigs, moss, 
lichen, fronds of the larch, and dead leaves; a 
structure, when completed, exactly resembling 
the branch of the tree to which it is really 
