NATURAL HISTORY. 187 



with the other things I have mentioned, a felt 

 wonderfully smooth. 7 ' 



" Is it smooth on the outside, Uncle Philip? 1 

 " Sometimes quite so ; but always as smooth 

 on the inside, when it is first made, as if it had 

 been felted together by the hat-maker. There 

 is another thing curious enough in some of 

 these nests. The hatter, you know, binds the 

 rim of his hat to make it stronger ; and some 

 of these felt-making birds will make their nests 

 stronger by a binding all around them of dry 

 grass stems, and sometimes of slender roots, 

 and they take care to cover these grass stems, 

 or roots, with their felt-work of moss and 

 wool. But there is something else not less 

 strange, I think, than the binding. It is this : 

 they will build their nests in the fork of a 

 shrub or tree ; and to keep them from falling, 

 they will Work bands of this felt round all the 

 branches which touch the nest, both below 

 and at the sides. And those parts of the nest 

 which touch the large branches are always 

 thinner than the other parts, which have no 

 support ; in those parts the nest is nothing 

 but a thin wall of felt, fixed around to fit the 

 shape of the branch, and that is enough to 



