28 BIRD-LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



tiny long-tailed birds flitting up in turn every few 

 moments with a scrap of lichen or a bit of spider's 

 web, and to watch how they deftly wove each 

 scrap into the walls of the globular structure. 

 They worked from the inside upwards, and were 

 continually pulling at the sides here and there, as 

 if to secure the proper degree of rotundity. Each 

 scrap of green lichen was gathered from the 

 neighbouring trees, and endless were the attitudes 

 assumed by the little architects in working in the 

 materials. Not a feather was brought in this 

 particular case until the outer shell was practically 

 completed : then visits were regularly made to a 

 poultry run at some distance for the soft feathers with 

 which the nest was lined, the birds bringing one at 

 a time : hair was obtained from a cow-shed in an 

 adjoining meadow. As the nest approached com- 

 pletion the parent birds became more cautious in 

 visiting it, and would sometimes hop about the sur- 

 rounding bushes for a long time without daring to 

 enter it. This particular nest absorbed the greater 

 part of a fortnight to complete it, and several more 

 days elapsed, so far as we could gather, before the 

 first egg was laid in it. 



In past years the Dartford Warbler seemed to 



