THE CAPOCIER. 
347 
Many foreign birds are excellent branch-builders. 
In Southern Africa there is a small, simply coloured, but 
interesting bird, called by Le Vaillant the Capocier (. Drymoica 
■maculosa) because it builds in a cotton-yielding tree, called by 
the Dutch colonist Capoc-bosche. 
The attention of that naturalist was directed to the bird in 
the following manner. 
Being, in common with all true naturalists, a lover of birds in 
their living state, and being in no wise disposed to kill them 
without necessity, he had contrived to tame a pair of little 
brown birds, which at last became so familiar that they would 
! enter his tent. On these terms they remained until the begin- 
ning of the breeding season, when they began to come less 
regularly, and then to absent themselves for several successive 
days. About this time they became thieves. M. Le Vaillant 
was accustomed to keep on his table a quantity of tow and 
cotton-wool, which he used in stuffing and otherwise preparing 
the skins which he had procured for his collection. The birds 
seemed suddenly to take a wonderful fancy to the tow and 
cotton-wool, and were continually flying off with them, some- 
times stealing a piece that was nearly as large as both the birds 
together. 
Struck with this sudden fancy of the birds, Le Vaillant 
determined to watch them, and soon traced them to a capoc- 
bosche tree which grew at some distance, and in a remarkably 
retired spot. Among the branches of this tree they had already 
begun their nest, which consisted of a quantity of moss pressed 
tightly into the forks of a bough, and which was at the time 
only in a rudimentary condition. The moss, in fact, was the 
foundation of the nest, upon which the beautiful walls were 
intended to be built, just as in the habitation of many other 
birds there is a foundation of substances more solid than the 
materials of which the walls are made. 
Into this nest the Capociers were weaving the stolen stores 
of cotton-wool, working it in a manner that will be presently 
described. Le Vaillant soon discovered that the legitimate sub- 
