NEST BUILDING. 
307 
horizontal branch of a tree, and occasionally on roofs, 
crosses on church steeples, and other high places; 
both birds take part in the construction. The Oven 
Builders seek some muddy place, whence they carry 
balls of clay about the size of a musket-bullet; these 
they place on the branch and spread out by help of their 
feet and beak, until they have made a foundation of 
some eight or nine inches long; this done, they raise an 
almost perpendicular wall at either end, which they allow to 
dry; upon this they place a second and a third course 
leaning inwards, until both sides meet in the form of a 
dome, leaving an opening on one side of about four 
inches by two, to serve as entrance : in the centre of this 
oven-shaped building they raise a division-wall about 
half-way up, and line the breeding-chamber, so separated, 
with cotton, feathers, or other soft material. Such a 
nest is a matter of astonishment; and to it, in a great 
measure, “ Joao de barro,” “ Jack mud hut,” may 
ascribe the immunity he enjoys at the hands of the 
Brazilians. 
Despite the completion of such a nest as the above, the 
prize-medal in the plastering line must be awarded to 
the Swifts and Swallows. Their nests surpass all the 
rest. Some Swallows make burrows in the sides of 
precipitous cliffs, at the end of which they form an oven¬ 
like excavation, in which they build their simple nest; 
the remaining species are plasterers. The localities 
chosen, and forms of the nests, are not the only points 
worthy of attention, but also the materials used. Our 
common Swallow (Cecropis rustica ) sticks its nest, which 
is open, and shaped like the quarter of a hollow sphere, 
under some either natural or artificial covering; its walls 
are formed of small lumps of mud, glued together with 
