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. 
d lie 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 Tchitrco, 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. It 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, 1 ' i. 119. 
