320 



LIFE, IN ITS HIGHER FORMS. 



like a bottle, suspending it firmly on the branches, but so 

 as to rock with the wind, and placing it with its entrance 

 downward to secure it from the birds of prey. His nest is 

 usually suspended over water, and it is popularly believed 

 that he lights them with fire-flies, which he is said to catch 

 alive at night, and confine with moist clay or with cow- 

 dung." 



This novel mode of lamp-lighting is so strange, and 

 almost incredible, that it has been doubted by some ; but 

 the testimony of independent observers of veracity, who 

 set themselves to examine the facts, confirms the vulgar 

 supposition, that illumination is the object desired. 



The interior of this pensile nest contains several apart- 

 ments, used by the parent birds for different purposes: one 

 of them, consisting of a little thatched roof over a perch, 

 without a bottom, protects the cock bird from the sun or 

 rain, as he cheers the sitting hen with his song.* 



In South Africa, a curious pendent nest is formed by 

 the Tchitrec, one of the flycatchers. Le Vaillant thus 

 describes it, on the authority of his intelligent Hottentot 

 hunter, Klaas: "In one of our journeys through a wood 

 of mimosas, in the country of the Caffres, he discovered 

 and brought me this nest, having seen, he said, and particu- 

 larly observed, a male and female Tchitrec occupied in con- 

 structing it. It is remarkable for its peculiar form, bearing 

 a strong resemblance to a small horn, suspended with the 

 point downwards, between two branches. Its greatest dia- 

 meter was two inches and a half, and gradually diminishing 

 towards the base. It would be difficult to explain the 

 principle upon which such a nest had been built, particu- 



* Forbes's " Oriental Memoirs," i. 119. 



