302 BIRD WATCHING 



that she has flown on, and is now perched somewhere 

 else. Thus you may see them glancing through the 

 greenwood, she usually leading, but sometimes each 

 alternately passing the other. Coming to the collect- 

 ing ground — for there is usually some spot more 

 liked by the birds than any other — the hen flies down 

 and begins to hop about, making, at intervals, little 

 dives forward with her bill, till she has collected some 

 moss, dry grass, or quite a little bundle of dead brown 

 leaves. The male bird follows her all about, hopping 

 where she hops, prying where she pries, and seeming 

 to make a point of doing all that she does except 

 actually collect material for the nest, and this, in my 

 experience, he never does do. Then, the one laden, 

 the other empty-billed, they both fly back in just the 

 same way, and the cock will sit again, often in the same 

 tree, whilst the hen adds her store to the growing bulk 

 of the nest. I have watched a pair make thirty-one 

 excursions to and from the nest between five and eight 

 o'clock in the morning. By half-past eight or nine 

 the building would cease, nor would it be commenced 

 again during the rest of the day.* 



Anything lovelier than the picture presented by 

 the two birds thus busied together in the early, dewy 

 morning, it would be difficult to imagine. It would 

 arouse the enthusiasm of all except very dull people, 

 and is even a prettier thing to see, I think, than when 

 both male and female work jointly. In the latter 

 case the straightforward business element predomin- 

 ates, but here, the attendance of the male bird upon 

 the female, and his evident pleasure iii such attend- 

 ance, his anxious interest in what she is doing, and 

 joy in seeing her do it, throws a more romantic 



* As far as I could ascertain this by coming a few times at intervals. 



