86 OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS. 
They also use chicken feathers, if they are close at 
hand, and bits of soft paper. 
If you want to see something that will amuse you, 
fasten on a tree or log a piece of old rope that has a 
ravelled end. Every day in nesting time the birds 
will tug at that ravelled end of rope, turning somer- 
saults in their hurry, and spending more time chasing 
one another away from it than in actual work. 
When a bird begins to build her nest, she uses coarse 
materials first, just as a house builder uses beams and 
timbers to begin with. The bird and the house builder 
save all the fine stuff for the last. Look closely at a 
nest when you find one. Pick up an old last year’s 
nest that has blown down. ‘This year’s nests do not 
belong to you. See how there are, first, large sticks 
or weeds, or rolls of mud. Between the large sticks or 
weeds there are small, short ones. You can imagine 
that these pieces all together are nails and boards, and 
help to hold the whole nest together.» Perhaps these 
may be all bound together with spiders’ web or string, 
or even paper. 
We have seen nests made of nothing but one kind of 
weed; usually a weed that has a strong smell, like wild 
sage or yarrow, is chosen. We think that the smell of 
these strong-scented weeds prevents lice or mites from 
invading the nest. Perhaps the force of habit or taste 
has led the bird to select this material. Probably her 
mother before her made the same sort of a nest, and 
so she thinks that is about the right thing to do. 
