282 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



I have one wood thrush nest study, in which the 

 entire nest is made from the fine, red roots of wild 

 raspberries and nettles. These were dug fresh, 

 woven into the nest while wet, and lined with very 

 fine roots of the same. When dry, the complete 

 structure was a bright red brown, nearly as hard as 

 spun glass, and with the full clutch of blue eggs 

 made one of the loveliest nests I have ever pictured. 



Enlargement of several kingfisher negatives, 

 where the male and female appear on one plate, 

 proves that the beak of the male was more scarred 

 than that of the female, from working out their 

 tunnel in the back wall of an abandoned gravel 

 pit. There can be no question of the male's 

 having performed the greater share of the work on 

 their home. The wall opening of the tunnel to the 

 nest was three feet from the top of the quarry, 

 six inches wide, four high, and five feet long. When 

 the excavation reached this length, it turned 

 sharply to the right, and a room about the size of a 

 boy's flat-crowned straw hat had been made. All 

 the stones, gravel, and clay in the hard wall that 

 had been loosened had been pushed the length of 

 the tunnel and formed a heap as big as a bushel 

 basket eight feet below, on the edge of a frog pond. 

 Some believe that all this earth and stone is car- 

 ried out in the beaks of the birds, but this seems 

 incredible; while the appearance of the heap sug- 

 gested that it had been shoved out. The bottom 

 of the tunnel was concave the size of the birds' 



