168 AETISTS AND AETISANS IN THE FEATHERED WOELD. 



quently, take her seat on the branch and cover the egg 

 with her breast only. As soon as the young is hatched, 

 it grows so rapidly that it fills the available space com- 

 pletely and soon finds no more room in these narrow 

 quarters ; it therefore leaves the nest and occupies the 

 same position as the mother before, i. d., on the branch, 

 resting with its breast only on the nest. 



Still another swallow, the dwarf swallow of India 

 (Micropus parvus), glues its nest, made of cotton fibres, to 

 the leaves of certain palm trees ; but as the swinging 

 motion of the leaf during any storm would cause the eggs 

 or the young to be thrown out, it very wisely glues the 

 eggs, as well as the young, to the nest with its saliva, and 

 thus prevents completely the accident which otherwise 

 might happen whenever the breezes shake the branches. 



As the last of this tribe 1 would mention the true swift 

 (Pauyptila Sancti-Hieronynis) in Guatemala, whose nest 

 is composed entirely of the seeds of a plant, secured to- 

 gether and hung from the under surface of an over-hang- 

 ing rock, by the saliva of the bird. The whole forms a 

 tube two feet long by six inches in diameter. The en- 

 trance is through the lower end of the tube, and the eggs 

 are placed on a kind of a shelf at the top. About 

 the middle of the tube, on the external side, is a protrud- 

 ing eave, as if over an entrance, but there is no hole, and 

 it has the appearance as if it was placed there in order to 

 deceive some enemy, such as a snake or a lizard, to the 

 attacks of which the parent bird or its nest would, dur- 

 ing the time of incubation, be more exposed. 



In the guild of the haslcet-plaiters we find not only, 

 as in the previous divisions, untiring and, in proportion 

 to their little strength and their imperfect tools, ad- 

 mirable workmen, but excellent artists. In the melodious 

 world of our singing birds we meet the best and most 

 numerous representatives of the basket-plaiters, weavers 

 fftid felt-makers, and they must really be reckoned among 



