rit 
pie among the latter disposes dead twigs in a pecu- 
liar manner, employing part as a basis on which the 
warm nest of straw and wool and feathers is to be 
supported, and part as a canopy, either to protect 
her eggs and young from rain, or more probably 
from the invasion of others, addicted like herself to 
egg-stealing. The nests of very many of the genera 
loxia, motacilla‘, fringilla, parus, may be here ad- 
duced as instances of most delicate art, most skil- 
fully applied to the purpose of cherishing with 
warmth the tender brood, and of securing them 
from the invasion of every kind of enemy. In ge- 
neral there is a curious adaptation of the exterior of 
the nest, even in its colour, to that of the surround- 
ing objects, so as to baffle the search of the most 
scrutinizing invader. The nests of the chaffinch, of 
the skylark, of the water-hen, and coot, equally 
serve to illustrate this observation, by the adapta- 
tion of lichens and mosses, of dried grasses, of reeds, 
and leaves of the Iris and sparganium, to these pur- 
poses. The floating nest of the coot is artificially 
moored to the stems of reeds or rushes. The nests 
of loxiz, now named plocei or weavers, are among 
the most remarkable. Some hang in numerous 
strings from the terminal twigs of lofty branches, 
f < The motacilla sutoria, or taylor-bird, sews one or two 
leaves dexterously together, making a bag close at the bottom and 
open at the top. This bag it fills in part with cotton, and in this 
abode deposits its eggs and hatches its young; the weight of the 
parent bird and the progeny not being sufficient to break the 
slight leaf stem to which the nest is suspended.” Shaw's Lec- 
tures—202. 
