146 ARTISTS AND ARTISANS IN THE FEaTHERED WORLD. 



In the month of June, a mower hung up his coat, un- 

 der a shed, near a barn ; two or three days elapsed before 

 he had occasion to put it on again ; thrusting his arm up 

 the sleeve, he found it completely filled with some rub- 

 bish, as he expressed it, and on extracting the whole 

 mass, found it to be the nest of a wren (Sylvia doraes- 

 tica) completely finished, and lined with a large quantity 

 of feathers. In his retreat he was followed by the little 

 forlorn proprietors, who scolded him with great vehem- 

 ence for thus ruining the whole economy of their house- 

 hold affairs. 



, Mr. Wood once found a missel thrush (Turdus vis- 

 civorus) nest in the crown of an old hat that had evi- 

 dently been flung into the tree by some traveller. The 

 hinge of a door has on more than one occasion been se- 

 lected for the purpose, and in one instance the nest re- 

 tained its position although the door was repeatedly 

 opened and closed. 



A railway carriage had been left for some weeks out of 

 use in the station at Giessen, Hesse Darmstadt, in the 

 month of May, 1852, and when the superintendent came 

 to examine the carriage he found that a black redstart 

 (Phoenicurus tithys) had built her nest on the collision 

 spring ; he very humanely retained the carriage until its 

 use was imperatively demanded, and at last attached it 

 to the train which ran to Frankfort-on-the-Main, a dis- 

 tance of nearly forty miles. It remained there for 

 thirty-six hours, and was then brought back to Giessen, 

 and, after one or two short journeys, came back to rest 

 at Giessen, after a period of four days. The young 

 birds were by this time partly fledged, and finding that 

 the parent birds had not deserted their offspring, the 

 superintendent carefully removed the nest to a place of 

 safety whither the parents soon followed. It is evident 

 at least one of the parent birds must have accompanied 

 the nest in all its journeys, for the nestlings would have 



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