320 BIRD WATCHING 



a literary critic or two — would wish to do away 

 with. • 



With regard to the nest - building habits of the 

 nightingale, I have only the space to say that, as in 

 the case of the blackbird, the female alone collects 

 and arranges the materials, being attended upon 

 whilst she does so — though, perhaps, not quite so 

 closely — by the male. One should be cautious, how- 

 ever, in concluding that such is always the case either 

 with this or other birds, for I have watched, for some 

 time, one of a pair of long-tailed tits bringing feathers 

 to the nest, whilst the other kept near about, with 

 nothing in its bill. Yet ordinarily both sexes work 

 together in a most exemplary way. Nothing can 

 look prettier than these little, soft, pinky, feathery 

 things, as they creep mousily into their soft, little 

 purse of a nest ; nothing can look prettier than they 

 do as they sit within it, pulling, pushing, ramming, 

 patting, and arranging ; finally, nothing can look 

 prettier than they look as they again creep out of 

 it and fly away. Their perpetual feat of turning 

 round in the nest without dislocating the tail, is also 

 one of those few earthly things in the seeing of which 

 one cannot weary. 



I have often tried to watch these little birds collect- 

 ing, so as to see them actually find and fly away with 

 the materials for the nest. This, however, I found 

 more difficult than I had expected. Every time I 

 saw them fly out of their nest, but in spite of stealthy 

 following, I generally lost them soon after they had 

 entered a plantation close to where, in a fir-hedge, it 

 was. All I could be sure of was that they flew about in 

 different directions, sometimes into tall fir-trees, some- 



