44 HOME STUDIES IN NATURE. 



they flitted about, looking into every available nook. 

 The laundry was finally abandoned for the front piazza 

 — the most frequented place they could possibly have 

 chosen. No room in the house was so much used. 

 Easy-chairs were scattered about for the use of the fam- 

 ily and for visitors ; a table also stood here for the daily 

 mail, where we read and discussed the questions of the 

 day. And here this persistent, wide-awake couple chose 

 to make their nest. They commenced building in a 

 corner on the plate just under the roof. 



Unlike the house wren, they do not use sticks in the 

 construction of their nest, but an abundance of the soft- 

 est material they can get. We had brought from the 

 woods a quantity of a beautiful fern -like moss which 

 we had stripped from decaying logs, and had placed it 

 on the ground beneath one of the trees. This moss, so 

 light and spongy, was just the thing for the little build- 

 ers — ever so much better than the long gray Tillandsia 

 which they had been using. They would alight upon 

 it and chatter over its merits, and both seemed agreed 

 as to its excellent qualities as a building material. 



They worked harmoniously together for several days, 

 the male stopping every now and then to express his 

 happiness in a loud, prolonged strain of music. But the 

 female proved very fickle-minded. All at once, without 

 any apparent reason, she changed her mind with regard 

 to the location of the domicile, and chose the other, end 

 of the piazza, near where we most frequently sat. Evi- 

 dently the male did not like this. She had already 



