310 Thoughts About Nests [FIRST WEEK 



forming it into a globular, long-necked flask. The barn 

 swallows mix the clay with straw and feathers and so 

 form very firm structures on the rafters above the 

 haymows. 



But what of the many nests of grasses and twigs which 

 we find in the woods? How closely they were concealed 

 while the leaves were on the trees, and how firm and strong 

 they were while in use, the strongest wind and rain of 

 summer only rocking them to and fro! But now we must 

 waste no time or they will disappear. In a month or more 

 almost all will have dissolved into fragments and fallen to 

 earth their mission accomplished. 



Some look as if disintegration had already begun, but 

 if we had discovered them earlier in the year, we should 

 have seen that they were never less fragile or loosely con- 

 structed than we find them now. Such is a cuckoo's nest, 

 such a mourning dove's or a heron's ; merely a flat plat- 

 form of a few interlaced twigs, through which the eggs are 

 visible from below. Why, we ask, are some birds so care- 

 less or so unskilful? The European cuckoo, like our 

 cowbird, is a parasite, laying her eggs in the nests of other 

 birds; so, perhaps, neglect of household duties is in the 

 blood. But this style of architecture seems to answer all 

 the requirements of doves and herons, and, although with 

 one sweep of the hand we can demolish one of these flimsy 

 platforms, yet such a nest seems somehow to resist wind 

 and rain just as long as the bird needs it. 



Did you ever try to make a nest yourself? If not, 

 sometime take apart a discarded nest even the simplest 

 in structure and try to put it together again. Use no 



