CRADLE MAKING. te 
the two ends of his body like a bird’s legs, the boy 
would come nearer flying. But more than all, he would 
need a good strong pair of wings. We have never 
seen a boy yet who had wings of any sort. 
CHAPTER XV. 
CRADLE MAKING. 
THERE is a good deal said and written about the way 
birds build their houses. But, really, birds do not 
build houses. Their houses or dwellings are built for 
them by Mother Nature, and are the trees and the 
bushes, and the sheltering rocks and the caves, and 
the cornices of our own houses. 
What birds really do build are their cradles, — little 
erib beds, sometimes with rockers and sometimes with- 
out. ; ‘ 
Birds do not make the cradle first and put the rockers 
on afterwards, as a cabinet-maker would do. They first 
choose the best rockers in the market, and then make 
the cradle on top of the rockers. Sometimes they doa 
very queer thing; they find the rockers, and then build 
the cradle under them. Birds have ways of their own, 
and they are very good ways, as you shall see. 
The rockers for a bird’s cradle are of the branches of 
the sycamore, or apple or orange trees, or they are of 
twigs of the elm or cypress, or banana leaves. Any 
