BUSH WREN 147 
of night, the heat of day—the dome form of nest 
still maintained itself. 
As in the case of species not commonly met 
with, forbearance was used in approach to and 
observation of the earliest. discovered nest. It 
was a pleasant piece of self-denial not more than 
to glance at it as we went on our ways. Although 
rats were not, and the Robin and Morepork little 
likely to do more than bully and intimidate, we 
felt the fear that permeates all true love; a first 
nest is to an enthusiast more precious than to a 
woman her first-born. No attempt to photo- 
graph it was made until others had been dis- 
covered; its interior structure waS never ex- 
plored. The second and the third nests were, 
however, exhumed as carefully as might be, 
examined, and, I am glad to say, replaced with- 
out causing desertion. In each we found the en- 
trance to the dome placed low on the side; in 
each, the stuff used lightly and loosely put to- 
gether, the careless construction perhaps making 
such ventilation as was possible rather more easy, 
or the birds deeming careful art in pitch blackness 
a superfluous labour. 
Fern débris, fibrous rootlets, feathers absurdly 
large and coarse, often bigger than the birds 
themselves, were the material used. These feathers 
were, curiously enough almost without exception, 
other than those of the Grey Petrel, the common 
