254 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
feats in weaving straw-plait for bonnets than any bird 
accomplishes. A rook’s nest looked at in the same 
way is about as large to the bird as a small breakfast- 
parlour, and is composed of poles. ‘To understand birds 
you must try and see things as they see them, not as 
you see them. They are quite oblivious of your senti- 
ments or ideas, and their actions have no relation to 
yours. A whole system of sentiment and conduct has 
been invented for birds and animals based entirely upon 
the singular method of attributing to them plans which 
might occur to a human being. The long-tailed tit 
‘often builds its nest in the midst of blackthorn thickets 
(which afford it the lichen it uses), or in deep hawthorn 
bushes. A man comes along, sees the nest, and after 
considerable exertion—having to thrust himself into the 
hedge-—and after some pain, being pricked by the thorns, 
succeeds, with bleeding hands, in obtaining possession of 
it. ‘Ah,’ he moralises, ‘what wonderful instinct on the 
part of this little creature to surround itself with a zareba 
like the troops after Osman Digma! Just look at my 
hands.’ Proof positive to him; but not to any one who 
considers that through the winter, up till nesting-time, 
these little creatures have been creeping about such thorns 
and thickets, and that they had no expectation whatever 
of a hand being thrust into the bushes. The spot which 
is so difficult of access to a man is to them easy of en- 
trance. They look at the matter from the very opposite 
point of view. The more thoroughly the artificial system 
of natural history ethics is dismissed from the mind the 
more interesting wild creatures will be found, because 
while it is adhered to a veil is held before the eyes, and 
nothing useful can ever be discovered. Put it aside, and 
there is always something new and as interesting as a 
fresh nest to a boy. 
