182 TALKS ABOUT BIRDS 



as well as much prettier. It is known in books 

 as the pied grallina, and by Australians as 

 the magpie-lark or mudlark, and is about as 

 big as a missel-thrush, handsomely pied with 

 coal-black and snow-white. As it likes to 

 run about on lawns and in shallow water, it 

 is very like a giant edition of our common 

 pied wagtail. 



All who take an interest in our home birds 

 know of the nuthatch's skill in mud-work, 

 which it uses in plastering up the entrance of 

 the tree-hole in which it makes its nest, so as 

 only just to have room to slip in and out ; 

 and one of the foreign nuthatches, which nests 

 in holes in rocks, improves on this idea and 

 makes a cone of plaster surrounding the 

 entrance and sticking out from the rock. 

 The same exaggeration of a British bird's 

 idea is seen in the nests of some Indian and 

 Australian swallows, which are not content 

 with plastering a mud nest on to a wall or 

 rock like our house-martin, but build a sort of 

 mud bottle with a neck, fastened against the 

 support by the bottom. These birds often 

 build in colonies, and a collection of their 

 home-made mud jars is a very curious sight. 



