192 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



Whilst some birds are guilty of theft, others 

 occasionally exhibit quite extravagant habits in re- 

 gard to the materials with which they are building 

 their nests ; and I have often located the precise 

 position of a Swallow's nest amongst the rafters of 

 a high barn by a collection of feathers dropped, I 

 have no doubt accidentally, to the floor. Ring- 

 Ouzels, Blackbirds, and Song Thrushes occasionally 

 drop quite a quantity of materials to the ground 

 beneath their nests, but do not appear to trouble 

 about picking them up again. In the course of my 

 ornithological experiences I have known one or two 

 cases of birds trying to build in impossible situa- 

 tions, and having their best efforts defied by the 

 materials toppling over as soon as piled a certain 

 height. I remember a place close beside a waterfall 

 in a little Yorkshire ghyll where a Blackbird or Song 

 Thrush attempts in vain nearly every year to build 

 on an ideal but, unfortunately, all too narrow ledge 

 of rock. 



Occasionally a bird will build a new nest on the 

 top of an old one belonging to the same species, 

 and I have known this done even when the old 

 one contained addled eggs. I once saw an old 

 Thrush's nest which had been lined with fine grass 

 and utilised by a none too industrious Blackbird. 

 We have met with several disused nests belonging 

 to the two last-named birds occupied by Harvest 

 Mice, which had filled up the hollows in each with 

 their own pretty little balls of grass. 



Kestrel Hawks are extremely lazy birds when 

 judged from a domestic point of view. They adopt 

 the old nests of Ravens, Carrion Crows, Magpies, 

 and Sparrow Hawks, soon foul them with their 

 castings, and, when their young ones are hatched 

 out, do not even trouble to remove the shells from 



