CHAPTER LVI 



birds' nests 



' TT is in the building of nests destined for the rear- 

 X ing of a family of young ones that the bird shows 

 in a remarkable way that wonderful faculty which 

 enables the little creature to accomplish, without pre- 

 vious training, results that would seem to require 

 the intervention of reasoned experience. 



"These adepts in bird-nest architecture have tal- 

 ents of the most varied sort. There are diggers, 

 who scoop out a hollow in the sand ; miners, who ex- 

 cavate a little cell to which a long and narrow pas- 

 sage gives access ; carpenters, who bore into the trunk 

 of a worm-eaten tree ; masons, who work with mor- 

 tar made of earth tempered with saliva; basket- 

 makers, who weave together small twigs and fine 

 roots ; tailors, who with a filament of bark for thread 

 and the beak for needle sew a few leaves together 

 into a cornet for holding the mattress on which the 

 young brood will rest ; workers in felt, who make a 

 fabric of down, hair, or cotton, that rivals our own 

 similar products; and builders of fortresses, who 

 protect their nest with an impenetrable thicket as a 

 rampart. 



"The goldfinch, that pretty little red-headed bird 

 which feeds on the seeds of thistles, builds a won- 



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