194- THE INDUSTRIES OF ANIMALS. 



the size of the fist, and hollowed out the interior. 

 (Fig. 30.) Delicate materials are not lacking around 

 to make a soft bed. The mouse gleans and con- 

 stantly brings in the light down of the willow, 

 grains with cottony crests, and the petals of flowers. 

 This is all carefully fitted, and when the edifice is 

 completed the female retires into it to bring forth 

 her young, which are there well sheltered against the 

 dangers without, and the caprices of storms and 

 floods. The nest is made with as much delicacy as 

 that of any bird, and no other mammal except Man 

 is capable of executing such weaver's work. 



The art of sewing among birds.- — There are birds 

 which have succeeded in solving a remarkable diffi- 

 culty. Sewing seems so ingenious an art that it must 

 be reserved for the human species alone. Yet the 

 Tailor Bird, the Orthotomus longicauda, and other 

 species possess the elements of it. They place their 

 nests in a large leaf which they prepare to this end. 

 With their beaks they pierce two rows of holes along 

 the two edges of the leaf; they then pass a stout 

 thread from one side to the other alternately. With 

 this leaf, at first flat, they form a horn in which they 

 weave their nest with cotton or hair. (Fig. 31.) 

 These labours of weaving and sewing are preceded 

 by the spinning of the thread. The bird makes it 

 itself by twisting in its beak spiders' webs, bits of 

 cotton, and little ends of wool. Sykes found that the 

 threads used for sewing were knotted at the ends.^ 

 It is impossible not to admire animals who have 

 skilfully triumphed over all the obstacles met with 

 in the course of these complicated operations.^ 



■' Catalogue of Birds, etc., p. 16. 



' Tristram, " On the Ornithology of Northern Africa," Isis, i859-£o. 



