THE GORDIAN KNOT 195 



came had something very small in its bill. Walking 

 to the tree, 1 found, at only a foot or two from 

 its trunk, a perfectly circular little hole, opening 

 smoothly from amongst the carpet of pine-needles, 

 with which the ground was covered. Against this 

 I laid my ear, but there were no chitterings from 

 inside, all was silent in the little, future nursery — 

 for evidently the nest was a-making. But how, now, 

 was I to watch the birds closely ? When I sat quite 

 near they would not come, the cover being not very 

 good ; when I lay, at full length, behind a fir-trunk, 

 and peeped round it, I could see, indeed, the ground 

 where the hole was, but not the hole itself, which 

 was just what I wanted to, inasmuch as, otherwise, I 

 could not see the birds enter it. How they did so 

 was something of a mystery, for they just flew down 

 and disappeared, without ever perching or hopping 

 about — at least I had never seen them do so. 

 Here, then, was a difficulty — to lie, and yet see 

 the hole, or to sit or stand, and look at it, without 

 frightening the birds away. But Alexander cut the 

 Gordian knot, and I, under these circumstances, 

 climbed a fir-tree. There was one almost by the 

 side of the one they flew to, and the closeness of its 

 branches, as well as my elevated situation amongst 

 them — birds never look for one up aloft — would, I 

 thought, prevent their noticing me. Up, therefore, 

 I got, to a point from which I looked down, directly 

 and comfortably, on their little rotunda. Soon one 

 of the coal-tits flew into its tree — the same one 

 always — and dropping, softly, from branch to branch, 

 till it got to the right one, dived from it right into 

 the tiny aperture, and disappeared through that, in 



