THROUGH THE YEAR 241 



cover against the larch tree. But the other nest 

 is one of the type which assimilates so exactly, so 

 wonderfully, to environment in form and material 

 that we ask ourselves can such an arrangement be 

 anything save deliberate, a device ? Has not the 

 cock wren taken pains down to minute detail to hide 

 the nest, make it invisible ? I cannot make up my 

 mind about this, probably I never shall, for one 

 instance flatly contradicts another, and there are 

 such reasonable arguments against as there are such 

 appearances for the theory. 



This nest is built among the scrubby growth of a 

 thick knobby stem of hornbeam, round which ivy is 

 twined. You find it by seeing the bird go in or come 

 out, and by no other means. If you did not know 

 there was a nest, you might at a yard's distance peer 

 intently at the cankered hornbeam stem and discover 

 nothing. It fits precisely its position, and there is 

 not a scrap of untidy moss or other material that 

 might make you suspect the existence of a nest in 

 the stem. First, I watched from a spot eight yards 

 away the cock wren going in and out with his building 

 material ; I reduced this distance gradually to about 

 four yards. He suffered me at these close quarters 

 with little sign of uneasiness ; he even sang his ditty 

 once or twice on a twig just outside the nest, facing 

 me the while : he pecked two tiny insects off a leaf 

 on the outside of his nest, he came and went freely. 

 But when I reduced the four yards by two or three, 

 he grew shy, and left off building. 



