194 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



in the utmost peace and harmony. The birds went 

 down the trunk and the bees up it. 



Birds of entirely different species sometimes 

 share the same nest, and yet live and go about 

 their business in perfect amity. 



A few years ago I watched a pair of Rooks 

 and a pair of House Sparrows, close to the Priory 

 Road, Hornsey, feeding their young at the same 

 time and at the same nest. The latter birds occu- 

 pied the basement, having taken up their quarters 

 amongst the sticks forming the foundation of the 

 Rooks' nest. 



In 1895 a pair of Starlings made their home and 

 successfully reared their young amongst the sticks 

 forming the Ospreys' eyrie shown in our illustration. 



The picture was obtained in the Highlands of 

 Scotland during a scorching hot day in the 

 droughty summer of 1896, and represents the nest 

 and adult birds of one of the two or three pairs of 

 Ospreys now said to breed in the British Isles. 



Whilst my brother was preparing to make a 

 study of the eyrie and its builders perched on the 

 dead tree tops from an adjoining island, the female, 

 as if afraid the hot sunshine would do some harm 

 to her exposed eggs, plunged headlong into the 

 loch, and, rising, shook her dripping wings over 

 them, after which she quietly resumed her favourite 

 perch. 



As a gratifying indication of the increasing 

 interest taken in natural history by the people at 

 large, hardly a week passes in the springtime with- 

 out the newspapers recording a curious nesting- 

 place chosen by some bird. Robin Redbreasts 

 naturally come in for a large share of journalistic 

 attention, and I am constantly having cuttings sent 

 me by friends who know I study the subject. 



