Some Foreign Bird Architects. 



in size from four to six inches in diameter, the spouts 

 being eight, nine, or ten inches in length. When built 

 on the sides of rocks, or in the hollows of trees, they are 

 placed without any regular order in clusters of about 

 thirty or forty together, some with the spouts inclining 

 downwards, others at right angles, etc. They are lined 

 with feathers and fine grasses." 



The Yellow-throated Sericornis is a very interest- 

 ing little Australian bird, of a general brownish hue 

 and with a citron-yellow throat, from which it takes 

 its name. It is a shy bird, hiding amongst the denser 

 underwood, rarely indulging in long-sustained flight, 

 but rather flying from thicket to thicket, and spending 

 much time upon the ground in search of insects on 

 which it feeds. The site selected for the nest is a re- 

 markable one, while the ingenuity of its construction 

 aroused the admiration of Gould, the famous orni- 

 thologist, who wrote the following interesting account : 

 " All those who have travelled in the Australian 

 forests must have observed that in their more dense 

 and humid parts an atmosphere peculiarly adapted for 

 the rapid and abundant growth of mosses of various 

 kinds is generated, and that these mosses not only 

 grow upon the trunks of decayed trees, but are often 

 accumulated in large masses at the extremities of the 

 drooping branches. These masses often become of 

 sufficient size to admit of the bird constructing a nest 

 in the centre of them, with so much art that it is im- 

 possible to distinguish it from any of the pendulous 

 masses in the vicinity. These branches are frequently 

 a yard in length, and in some places hang so near the 

 ground as to strike the head of the explorer during his 



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