FAMILY CARES— BUILDING THE HOME. 121 



wants. How considerable these are, we shall 

 see later. How different i^ the case with the 

 buffoonery, and bluster, or brute force of the 

 ruffs, the bustards and the game-birds. Here, 

 no sooner has their wooing proved successful, 

 than they turn their backs upon the females and 

 leave them to fend as best they may, roaming 

 the country it may be in parties as in bachelor 

 days, or flitting indolently about the neighbour- 

 hood in wanton idleness. Fortunately, there is 

 not much need of their help, for the young 

 are able almost at once to run and feed them- 

 selves. But of this anon. 



We have seen something of our feathered 

 friends during the period of courtship, we are 

 now going to take a peep at them in the homes 

 which they have newly founded. The choice 

 of a mate having been made the next step is 

 to select a site on which to build a home. This 

 home we call a *'nest.'* The form which this 

 nest may take, and the situation of the site, 

 are exceedingly variable, though always con- 

 stant in each kind of bird. 



The object of a nest is to contain the eggs, 

 and often the young, so that such a structure 

 need not possess grrat durability, being required 

 only for a few weeks in the year. It is not 

 used, as is sometimes supposed, for the nightly 

 shelter throughout the year. 



The lange of variation in the site chosen and 

 in the form of the nest, is, as we shall see, a 

 very wide one. We shall find it, in its rudest 

 form, as a simple hole scraped in the ground, and 

 in its highest, amongst the most elaborate and 



