Nest-Builders 



a home for the upbringing of the young and as a resting- 

 place for the adults ; the former is probably the chief 

 object of its construction. The brush-tailed rat kangaroos 

 are nocturnal in their habits, and they spend the hours of 

 light within their nest, after having carefully closed the 

 entrance, by means of a tuft of grass, before retiring to 

 rest. Their little homes are very difficult to detect, built 

 as they are amongst long herbage and never, by any 

 chance, being situated at a higher level than the surround- 

 ing vegetation. 



Another Australian nest-building quadruped is the 

 rabbit-eared bandicoot. About the size of a rabbit, with 

 long, broad ears and hind legs of such a length that its 

 gait is awkward, yet it cannot leap like the kangaroo. 

 The rabbit-eared bandicoot is one of the oddities of nature. 

 It frequents ground broken by scattered tufts of vegeta- 

 tion, just the districts favoured by the rat kangaroos, and 

 the nests of the two animals are very similar. If any- 

 thing, the bandicoot is the more adept at concealing its 

 abode. 



A far more proficient architect than either the bandicoot 

 or the rat kangaroo is our little harvest mouse. This 

 diminutive creature is one of the smallest quadrupeds 

 known, weighing, when full grown, little more than 

 a sixth of an ounce. He is a familiar object of wheat- 

 fields with his rich red-brown coat, which gives place to 

 clear white below. 



The nest of the harvest mouse is an elegant and com- 

 fortable structure ; the materials of which it is composed 

 may be wool, rags, hair, moss or feathers, though, usually, 

 the little builder looks no further for its nesting material 

 than the grass and leaves amongst which its nest is 

 suspended. These leaves it plaits and weaves with con- 

 summate skill, tearing the broader leaves lengthways, that 

 they may better be used in its scheme of nest construction. 

 The completed nest is a little larger than a cricket ball, 

 of similar shape and beautifully neat and compact ; its 



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