96 OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS. 
Small birds, such as the goldfinches and humming- 
birds, use a good deal of spider’s web in making their 
cradles. This is very soft, and when many strands are 
used together it is very strong. This web is used to 
hold the mosses and plants down in place. When you 
see the bushes and hedges all covered with web in a 
damp morning, think of the little bird house-builders. 
Watch, in some quiet corner out of sight of them, and 
you will see the mother humming-bird or goldfinch 
dart up to the glistening webs and examine them in 
turn, just as a lady who is out shopping examines the 
different goods in a store. 
Madam Bird flies down to a small web, taking a bite 
at it with her slender bill, as if she were feeling of it 
with her fingers. 
Then she flies off to another spider’s counter of goods 
and pecks at another web. When she has found what 
suits her, she will take several bird yards of it home 
with her. 
In the nest of our goldfinch in the apple tree, we see 
some spider web binding the grasses together, but the 
nest itself is lined with horsehairs. We have one bay 
horse and one black horse. In this nest lining there 
are hairs from the tails of both horses, woven round 
with great care in a striped way, that looks as if the 
bird had thought about how it would look, the red and 
the black together. 
