176 HABITATIONS OF ANIMALS. 



art. With the same materials as the rest of the stiucture, the 

 titmouse builds an arch over the top of the nest, which resem- 

 bles an egg erected upon one end, and leaves a small hole in 

 the side for a passage. Both eggs and young, by this contri- 

 vance, are defended from the injuries of the air, rain, cold, &,c. 

 That the young may have a soft and warm bed, she lines the 

 inside of the nest with feathers, down, and cobwebs. The 

 sides and roof are composed of moss and wool, interwoven in 

 the most curious and artificial manner. 



Mr. Pennant, in his Indian Zoology, gives the following cu- 

 rious account of the manner in which the Motacilla sutoria, 

 or tailor-bird, builds its nest. ' Had Providence,' Mr. Pen- 

 nant remarks, ' left the feathered tribes unendowed with any 

 particular instinct, the birds of the torrid zone would have* 

 built their nests in the same unguarded manner as those of Eu- 

 rope ; but there, the lesser species, having a certain prescience 

 of the dangers that surround them, and of their own weakness, 

 suspend their nests at the extreme branches of the trees. They 

 are conscious of inhabiting a climate replete with enemies to 

 them and their young ; with snakes that twine up the bodies 

 of the trees, and apes that are perpetually in search of prey ; 

 but, heaven-instructed, they elude the gliding of the one, and 

 the activity of the other. The brute creation are more at 

 enmity with one another than in other climates ; and the 

 birds are obliged to exert an unusual artifice in placing their 

 little broods out of the reach of an invader. Each aims at 

 the same end, though by different means ; some form their 

 pensile nest in shape of a purse, deep and open at top ; others 

 with a hole in the side ; and others, still more cautious, with 

 an entrance at the very bottom, forming their lodge near the 

 summit.* But the tailor-bird seems to have greater diffidence 

 than any of the others : it will not trust its nest even to the 

 extremity of a slender twig, but makes one more advance to 

 safety by fixing it to the leaf itself It picks up a dead leaf, 

 and, surprising to relate, sews it to the side of a living one, its 

 slender bill being its needle, and its thread some fine fibres, 

 the lining feathers, gossamer, and down. Its eggs are white, 

 the color of the bird light yellow ; its length three inches ; 

 its weight only three-sixteenths of an ounce ; so that the ma- 

 terials of the nest and its own size, are not likely to draw 

 down a habitation that depends on so slight a tenure.' 



*This instinct prevails also among the birds on the banks of the Gambia in Africa, 

 which abounds with monkeys and snakes ; others, for the same end, make their nest 

 in holes of the banks that overhang that vast river. Purrhas, Vo'. II. p. 1576. 



