FAMILY CARES — BUILDING THE HOME. 141 



and is lined with a quantity of small feathers." 

 Macgillivray, the great ornithologist, by the way, 

 once took the trouble to count up the feathers 

 in the nest of a long-tailed tit, and found more 

 than 2000. One can best appreciate the amount 

 of labour this represents by recollecting that 

 probably every one of these feathers was captured 

 and brought in singly. 



The nests of the baya-sparrow of India, and 

 of the penduline-tits differ markedly from the 

 normal form of cup-shaped nests so familiar to 

 us all. 



That of the baya-sparrow is suspended from the 

 branch of a date palm, or cocoa-nut tree, or, it 

 would seem in Burma, from the eaves of bunga- 

 lows. " Its shape," says Prof. Nev^ ton, " can best 

 be likened to a stocking hung up by the toe 

 with the 'heel' enlarged to receive the eggs, 

 while access and exit are obtained through the 

 leg." In constructing the nest, the male and 

 female are both engaged. The male, seizing a 

 long piece of grass, thrusts it into the fabric 

 already made ; the female inside pulls it through, 

 and then passes it out to him again, so that a 

 very strongly plaited structure is the result. 



The male bird, it seems, cuts his own grass, 

 and this he does from the long blades of the 

 seenta grass in the following manner. Alighting 

 on the leaf head-downwards, "he bites through 

 the edge to the exact thickness which it requires. 

 He then goes higher up on the same blade of 

 grass, and, having considered the length needed, 

 bites through it again. He then seizes it firmly 

 at the first notch and flies away. Of course the 



