Some Bird Architects. 



can find, and these are woven together with the aid 

 of spiders' webs and long grasses, the whole dainty 

 structure being suspended hammock fashion from the 

 under side of the slender twigs at the end of the 

 branch of some coniferous tree, such as a larch, fir, 

 yew, or cedar. The frail hammock cradle is then lined 

 with a few small feathers. 



The Long-tailed Tit is by no means our only British 

 bird architect that affects a dome-shaped structure ; 

 the little Willow Wren, whose sweet song captivated 

 the heart of the American naturalist Burroughs who 

 declared it to be the sweetest of British songsters is 

 skilled in the construction of the dome-shaped nest, 

 though its work is not so fine or so complex as that of 

 the Long-tailed Tit. The graceful little Willow Wren 

 is not, as its popular name might lead us to suppose, 

 really any near relative of the true Wren. It haunts 

 the alders and tangled growths of sedges fringing any 

 quiet wandering moorland stream, and there its soft 

 sweet song may be heard from about the end of March 

 until summer has far advanced. Its nest is generally 

 built very low down, if not actually touching the ground, 

 and is generally so well concealed from view as to make 

 the watching of the actual building operations a some- 

 what difficult if not altogether impossible task. Dried 

 grasses, dead leaves, fragments of last season's bracken 

 fern and moss, are collected and woven into a beautiful 

 dome-shaped nest, with a large opening at the side ; 

 and the interior finally receives a soft, thick bedding of 

 feathers. 



The Chiff-chaff builds a somewhat similar dome- 

 shaped nest, chiefly of dead leaves, moss, and dry 



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