BIRDS’ NESTS

“It is in the building of nests destined for the rearing of a family of young ones that the bird shows in a remarkable way that wonderful faculty which enables the little creature to accomplish, without previous training, results that would seem to require the intervention of reasoned experience. “These adepts in bird-nest architecture have talents of the most varied sort. There are diggers, who scoop out a hollow in the sand; miners, who excavate a little cell to which a long and narrow passage gives access; carpenters, who bore into the trunk of a worm-eaten tree; masons, who work with mortar made of earth tempered with saliva; basket-makers, who weave together small twigs and fine roots; tailors, who with a filament of bark for thread and the beak for needle sew a few leaves together into a cornet for holding the mattress on which the young brood will rest; workers in felt, who make a fabric of down, hair, or cotton, that rivals our own similar products; and builders of fortresses, who protect their nest with an impenetrable thicket as a rampart.