210 



HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



The respectable guild of tailors, indeed, were wont to attri- 

 bute to their mystery an antiquity surpassing that of any other 

 handicraft, and, on the strength of a certain passage in Genesis, 

 claimed Adam as the first tailor. As to the smiths and musi- 

 cians, the tailors looked down upon them as of comparatively 

 recent origin, and considered even the mysterious order of Free- 

 masons as modern upstarts. Had they been moderately skilled 

 in ornithology, they might have claimed a still older origin, on 

 the grounds that, long before man came on the earth, the needle 

 and the thread were used for sewing two objects together. 



THE TAILOR BIKD^. 



The wonderful little bird, whose portrait is accurately given 

 in the accompanying illustration, is popularly known by the 

 appropriate title of Tailor Bird, its scientific name being Or- 

 thofomus longicaudus. The manner in which it constructs its 

 pensile nest is very singular. Choosing a convenient leaf, gene- 

 rally one which hangs from the end of a slender twig, it pierces 

 a row of holes along each edge, using its beak in the same 

 manner that a shoemaker uses his awl, the two instruments 



