REMARKABLE INSTANCES OF NIDIFICATION. 
The instance recorded by me, in a former number, of tbe eccentric nidifica- 
tion of a Wren (Anorthura J having elicited a singular parallel from another Cor¬ 
respondent (see page 181), I shall give a few more occurrences of a similar nature 
and equally interesting. I may here state, in reply to that Correspondent, that 
the nest of the Chimney Swallow f Hirundo garrula , Blyth), appropriated too 
unceremoniously by the noisy little W T ren, was built in an outhouse, and it was so 
constructed that the feathered tenants could only just enter by the space left 
between the upper part of the front wall of the nest and the ceiling of the shed. 
In the hall of my former residence, Chimney Swallows attempted to build in 
the upper corners of the walls, for several years successively, making use of the 
ceiling instead of laboriously constructing the costly dome of the Rose Muflin 
(Mecistura roseci). % So unweariedly did these nature-taught architects ply 
their hod and mortar that they contrived to advance far in their “ temples not 
made with hands ” before much attention had been attracted by their journeys 
backwards and forwards. The vigilant eyes of the house-maids—a class of per¬ 
sons, by the bye, who are most of them destructives —were speedily directed 
towards the procreant cradles of my little favourites, and they were destroyed. 
Nothing daunted, the Swallows renewed their attempts at establishing their in-door 
colony, working like so many masons; but it was all labour in vain. 1 would 
willingly have marked the lintels of the entrances, that the destroyer might pass 
by; but the unlucky Swallows were apt to get into a sky-light, which proved as 
fatal to them as was Doubting Castle of Giant Despair, in the Pilgrims Pro¬ 
gress, to the unfortunate mortals who entered in thereat. I, therefore, had the 
door closed till the mania was over. 
I have noticed several other rather strange choices of places for building ma¬ 
nifested by birds ; and as the feathered bipeds have no Architectural Magazine , 
their choice of a site may be determined by caprice rather than by fixed principles. 
I refer the reader to page 513 of the Field Naturalist's Magazine for a very 
remarkable instance of attachment to its nest manifested by a Garden Willet 
( Sylvia nielodia , Blyth). I have known a similar instance of attachment to home 
in the Noisy Willet (Sylvia loquax , Herbert) ; and though the nest in this in¬ 
stance was certainly not “ made a complete ruin by a flock of Ducks,” yet it was 
sufficiently damaged to afford abundant apology for desertion. I have witnessed 
the nests of the Common Redstart (Ruticilla luscinia), the Robin Redbreast 
(Pubecula familiar is), and several other common birds, in extraordinary situa¬ 
tions, which, at some future time, I may probably describe. 
C. T. Wood. 
* Longtailed Tit and Pants caudatus of old authors : Leach has very properly consti¬ 
tuted a new genus for the reception of this species and its congeners. The Musdcapa luc- 
tuosa of old authors I propose to call the Pied Collet (Jphedula lucluosa ), 
