34 Tenants of a Season. 
rubbish that looks like preparations for a bonfire. The ringdove 
trusts her eggs to a real platform of sticks woven so carelessly 
that their white forms are often clearly visible from below. Some 
birds, whose lives are passed chiefly on the ground, make no nest 
whatever, and their young can run—in some rare cases, even fly— 
as soon as they leave the shell. But the nests of others, though 
used only for a single season, are marvellous works of art. The 
palm for clever building must undoubtedly be awarded to the 
long-tailed tit. 
In a quiet corner of the meadow, where the dubious path is 
seldom worn by the foot of man, a thick briar bush, standing out 
from the hedge, leans over the little brook that under its canopy 
of fresh green hart’s-tongue wanders by unseen. In the thorny 
tangle of the briar a pair of these skilful weavers will set to work 
upon their dwelling, and the fast-opening leaves of April will soon 
draw over it a green veil. ‘The structure is indeed a triumph of 
the builder’s art. Without, it is an oval ball of moss felted with 
wool and hair, and thickly studded with scraps of grey lichen from 
the stems of ancient trees. Within, it is cushioned so deeply 
that nearly three thousand feathers have been counted in a single 
nest. All this is finished in a fortnight or less from the first layer 
of moss to the last feather in the lining. ‘The entrance is at the 
side—a tiny hole, not always easy to discover. How eight young 
birds find air to breathe in such close quarters, and how their 
parents contrive to feed them all in their right turns, must ever 
remain a mystery. 
The long-tailed tit has neither equal nor second, but perhaps 
no bird approaches her more nearly than the wren. The mate- 
rials she chooses vary with her surroundings. Here, skilfully 
woven of green moss, the nest fills a hollow in an old stump so 
naturally that among fringes of lichen and dark festoons of ivy it 
seems but the growth of time. There, under the brown eaves of 
an ancient barn, it is a delicate fabric of dry grass harmonising 
exactly with the stained and weathered thatch. Now, in a chink 
in the crumbling ruin, its greys and browns are in perfect keeping 
with the tints of the time-worn masonry. Now, cradled in the 
arms of the giant ivy, it seems but the handful of dry leaves that 
the winds of autumn heaped into the hollow. Many a time 
would it escape notice altogether did not the alarm notes of the 
builder, like a miniature watchman’s rattle, as she flits uneasily in 
and out of the hedgerow, betray what she fain would hide. 
Birds in general are jealous of any meddling with their nests ; 
but the wren is particularly fastidious. Many nests are built and 
never finished; and should her sanctuary be touched in her 
absence she will detect the profanation in a moment, and will 
probably abandon her eggs without further ceremony. The wren 
