GNATCATCHERS AND VERDINS 207 



pied nest of the season and placed it up under 

 the eaves of my house where it served as a 

 decorative feature. When spring came the 

 verdins (evidently the same pair that had built 

 it in the spring of the year before) spied it out 

 and proceeded without my permission to tear 

 it to pieces bit by bit and make it into a new 

 home for themselves. As though it were a kind 

 of protest against my ever having removed it 

 from its old place in the lavender bush, they 

 took every twig of it back there and made the 

 nest in the same branch from which I had 

 taken it. When this nest was done, it was 

 almost as big as my head. So many feathers 

 and leaves were put inside for lining that one 

 would have thought there would have been no 

 room for anything else; indeed, so many feath- 

 ers were protruding from the small opening at 

 the end that the fat nest looked as if it were 

 going to burst. If any baby birds that after- 

 wards occupied it were not comfortable, it was 

 because they had crowded quarters and not 

 because their bed was not soft enough. 



When I came back to the desert in the 

 autumn I found these same birds still holding 



