250 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
BIRDS’ NESTS. 
‘PERFECTLY lovely!’ ‘Such pretty colours!’ ‘So 
neat ; isn’t it wonderful how the little things do it with 
their beaks?’ ‘The colours are so arranged as to con- 
ceal it; the instinct is marvellous;' and so on. These 
comments were passed on a picture of a bird’s nest— 
rather a favourite subject with amateur painters. The 
nest was represented among grass, and was tilted asidé 
so as to exhibit the eggs, which would have rolled out 
had they been real. It was composed of bright-green 
moss with flowers intertwined, and tall bluebells, rising 
out of the grass, overhung it. Nothing could be more 
poetical. In reality, the flowers—if ever actually used 
by a bird—would have faded in a day, and the moss 
would never have had so brilliant and metallic a tint. 
The painter had selected the loveliest colours of the mead 
and gathcred them into a bouquet, with the nest in the 
centre. This is not exactly like nature: a robin’s nest 
for instance, the other day was discovered in an old 
shoe, discarded by a tramp and thrown over the wall 
into the shrubbery. Nests are not always made where 
flowers grow thickest, and birds have the oddest way of 
placing them—a way which quite defeats rational 
search. After looking into every nook, and places where 
if built a nest would be hidden from passers-by, sud- 
denly it is found right in front of you and open to view. 
You have attributed so much cunning to the bird that 
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