SLOW BUILDERS 241 



bill that I can see, but, each time, giving himself a 

 little press down in the nest, and, simultaneously, 

 stretching his neck outwards, and a little up, so 

 that the rounded, swollen - looking throat just 

 touches its edge. After doing this twice or thrice, 

 he makes a dip down, out of the nest, and flies off. 

 I can never make out that he either brings or 

 deposits anything. The other bird comes, also, two 

 or three times, to the nest, but neither does she seem 

 to do anything, except sit in it and just touch its 

 edge with her bill. One bird, coming whilst the 

 other is thus sitting in the little mud cradle, hangs, 

 fluttering, outside it, for awhile, with a little chirrupy 

 screaming, and then darts off. There must have 

 been, by now, a dozen visits, yet the birds, appa- 

 rently, bring nothing, and do little, or nothing, each 

 time. Another visit of this sort, the bird just 

 touching the rim with its swollen throat — not the 

 beak — and then dropping off — a light little Ariel. 

 And now another : and, this time, the partner bird 

 hovers, chirruping, in front of the nest, as the 

 first one lies in it — but nothing is brought, and 

 nothing done that I can see. It now seems plain 

 that, for some time during the nest-building — or 

 what one would think was the nest-building — the 

 birds visit the nest, either by turns, or together, yet 

 do nothing, or next to nothing, to it. Two more 

 of these make-believes, but now, at last, mud is 

 plainly deposited by the visiting bird ; but I cannot 

 quite make out if it is carried in the bill, or dis- 

 gorged out of the throat. 



" 6.50. — Both birds to the nest. One has a piece 

 of mud in the bill, which it keeps working about. 



