47 



THE TAILOR-BIRD. 



The Sutoria, or Tailor-bird, is a native of the 

 East Indies. Mr. Pennant speaking of this 

 wonderful little bird, says, " Had Providence 

 left the feathered tribe unendued with any par- 

 ticular instinct, the birds of the torrid zone j 

 would have built their nests in the same un- 

 guarded manner as those of Europe ; 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 ex- 

 treme branches of the trees ; conscious of in- 

 habiting a clime replete with enemies to them 

 and their young. Snakes that twine up the 

 bodies of 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. Some form their pensile nest in the 

 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 

 little species here described, seem to have 

 greater diffidence than any of the others. It 

 will not trust its nest even to the extremity of 

 the slender twig, but makes one more advance 



