Some Foreign Bird Architects. 



and it is curious to note that in captivity the bird will 

 throw up his food and not only offer it to his mate, 

 though she is not walled up in a tree, but will offer 

 food in the same way to his keeper or any other human 

 friend for whom he may form an attachment. 



The Fantail Warbler, common over the whole of 

 Southern Europe, and in Africa, India, and China, 

 is a highly skilled little architect, building a singularly 

 beautiful and dainty nest. Its favourite nesting site 

 is a patch of dense fine-stemmed grass, from eighteen 

 inches to two feet in height, growing in a moist situa- 

 tion. Around two or three of the upright grass stalks 

 the little bird weaves a framework of cotton or other 

 fibrous material at a height of between ten inches and 

 fourteen inches from the ground, the material being 

 sewn into the grass and passed from one stalk to an- 

 other, the blades and stems being closely tacked and 

 caught together with cobwebs and very fine, silky 

 vegetable fibre, so that a narrow tube is formed. This 

 accomplished, the little bird proceeds to bend down 

 several blades belonging to the stalks which have been 

 connected together, and to interlace them so that they 

 form a bottom to the tube. The whole of the interior 

 is then lined with closely felted cotton or other downy 

 substance. The completed nest forms a deep and 

 narrow purse of about three inches in depth, and an 

 inch in diameter at the top, and one-fifth of an inch 

 at the broadest part below. The stems of grass are 

 generally tacked together a good deal higher up on one 

 side than on the other, and it is through or between 

 the untacked stems opposite to this that the tiny en- 

 trance to the nest is made. The stems and blades 



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