30 A BUSH CALENDAR 



operations now and again to utter his little running call. This 

 was answered from higher up the hill, and presently his small 

 brown mate came hurrying into the tree, and commenced to 

 weave a bark fibre into her tiny cradle, which was quite in- 

 visible until she drew my attention to it. It was not much 

 bigger than hali-a-crown, and so thinly built that a week later 

 I could plainly see the two tiny eggs through the bottom of the 

 nest. These last are creamy white, with a zone of brownish 

 spots round the top, and are so small as to make it almost in- 

 credible that they can ever hold little birds within their shell. 



The eggs are something like, though smaller than, those of 

 the little grey fantail, which is also nesting now. I know two 

 nests, both like wineglasses with the foot broken off, neatly 

 covered with grey-white cobweb, and both now containing eggs. 

 The square-tailed cuckoo generally places her egg in the fan- 

 tail's nest ; but this parasitic lady only arrived last Saturday, 

 so my fantails have escaped her imposition. The square-tailed 

 has the funniest note of all the cuckoos. The bird begins quite 

 quietly, but seems to work up into a state of excitement, and 

 her song ends in an incoherent high-pitched whistle. The 

 whole sounds something like, "We're going to work, we're 

 going to work, we're going to work, we're going to we are, 

 we are, we are." And they go to work quickly, too ; as I shall 

 show you. 



Last month I was pleased to have found a nest of the 

 chestnut-shouldered wren, first cousin to our common blue 



