66 BIRDS OF THE PLAINS 



as is popularly supposed, nor is there any necessity for 

 her to do so. Sometimes the connecting threads of 

 cotton are sufficiently long to admit of their being 

 passed to and fro, in which case the bird utilises the 

 full length. 



I may mention that when the nest, the building of 

 which I have attempted to describe, was about three 

 parts finished, Mr. Pinto noticed that the bird had ceased 

 to work at it. He was surprised and disappointed. He 

 then discovered that the little builder was at work on a 

 Draccena plant on the right-hand side of the entrance to 

 the verandah, not two yards distant from the first nest. 

 He was much astonished at the strange behaviour of 

 the bird, and still more so when, the next day, she had 

 resumed work at her first nest, which she completed, 

 leaving the second unfinished at the stage when the 

 punctures had been made and the edges of the leaf 

 drawn together by strands of cobweb. Presently an 

 explanation of the bird's unusual behaviour occurred to 

 him. His dog which, ordinarily, is chained up at one 

 end of the verandah, was, on the day the tailor-bird left 

 her first nest, fastened up in the middle of the verandah, 

 so that the bird while working at her nest would be 

 within its reach. She evidently objected to this, so 

 began a new nest; but next day, when the dog had been 

 removed, she returned to her more advanced nursery. 

 This accident of chaining up the dog for one day in the 

 middle of the verandah was particularly fortunate, for it 

 enabled me to examine carefully a nest in an early state 

 of construction. 



This account must, I fear, close with a tragedy. 



