86 THE ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS. 
ascertained that this sort of niche is not contrived 
for any such purpose. The male, indeed, sits on the 
eggs as well as the female, and when either of them 
is thus occupied, the other never remains as a sen- 
tinel at thenest. Iam quite confident of this, from 
having found at least a hundred of these nests, and 
having watched and observed the birds for whole 
morningstogether. ‘This little recess appears to be 
nothing more that a perch, by means of which the 
pinc-pinc may pass more easily into its nest, which, 
without such a contrivance, it might find some dif- 
ficulty of accomplishing, as .t could not move through 
so small an opening on the wing; and as the outside 
of the nest is slightly formed, it would injure it were 
the bird constantly to rest upon it, while this little 
space is as strongly built as the interior of the nest. 
To give it the required solidity, the bird has no other 
means than beating with its wings, and turning its 
body in different directions, as I have elsewhere 
related of the capocier. In consequence of this 
method of working, the work must necessarily be 
rounded and have the appearance of a very small 
nest; a circumstance which has led to the belief 
that it was made ‘solely for the accommodation of 
the male. This, however, is so far from being the 
fact, that when a branch is so situated as to render 
the entrance into the nest easy, the little cell is not 
found ; and, besides, I found several of these nests 
with two or three perches, and others in which the 
perch had little of the form of a small nest. 
“In general, these perch-cells are so narrow that 
the bird, small as it is, could not well rest upon 
them; and it would be much more difficult for the 
bird to which Sonnerat attributes this nest. Besides, 
as I have already stated, I examined the proceedings 
of these birds whenever an opportunity occurred, 
and never once observed one placed in th eniche as 
a watchbird; but I have seen the male and female, 
on arriving at the nest, perch themselves on the 
