FAMILY CARES — BUILDING THE HOME. 135 



long time or the co-operation of many pairs of 

 birds to collect the seeds in full flight. The nest 

 was found by Mr Osbert Salvin in 1858, hanging 

 under a shelf of rock, to which it was attached 

 by means of the bird's own saliva, which is also 

 employed throughout the building of the nest, to 

 cement the seeds together. As with the pendu- 

 line-tits . . . the nest of this swift also had a 

 false entrance at the side, which Mr Salvin con- 

 sidered might 'be placed there to deceive some 

 enemy, such as snake or lizard, to the attacks of 

 which the parent-bird and its offspring Avould, 

 during the time of incubation, be more exposed.' " 



We have yet three more mud-nests which must 

 be briefly noticed here — the nests of the flamingo, 

 the oil-bird and the oven-bird. 



The flamingo is an aberrant stork : the only one 

 of all his house who builds a mud-nest. This is 

 but a huge pile of mud raised a few inches above 

 the water, by which it is generally surrounded. 

 The long legs of this bird, like those of the 

 heron, are doubled up under the body when 

 sitting. There was an old idea that both these 

 birds sat "straddle-legs" across the nest. Need- 

 less to say such a notion is ridiculous, for the 

 birds can as easily fold up their legs as can the 

 sparrow for instance. 



The oil-bird, or guacharo, is a kind of night-jar 

 common in Peru. It builds a mud-nest in a cave. 

 The hard indigestible seeds investing the fruit 

 upon which this bird feeds "are found," says 

 Prof. Newton, "in quantities on the floor and 

 the ledges of the caverns it frequents, where 

 many of them for a time vegetate, the plants thus 



