"Boys, do you remember my telling you of a remarkable bird, called the tailor-bird, which sews very neatly?"

"Oh yes, Uncle Philip; it is not easy to forget such an excellent little workman; but why do you ask—have you any thing more to tell us about that bird?"

"No, boys, not any thing of that bird; but I was thinking last night of the work done by several other kinds of birds, some of them quite as good workmen as our little tailor; and I thought that, perhaps, you might like to hear of them."

"We would, Uncle Philip, be very happy to hear of them, if you will have the kindness to tell us about them. But what kind of work is it they do?"

"Various kinds, boys. There are some which make what is called felt, just as the hat-maker does; and some are weavers, others basket-makers; some build platforms to live on; and I assure you some birds' nests are as curious as any of the things of which I have yet told you."

"Pray let us hear of them, Uncle Philip."

"Very well, you shall. I will begin with birds that make felt like the hatter. Do you know how a hat is made?"

"Not exactly, Uncle Philip; but we know what it is made of."

"What is it, boys?"

"Of sheep's wool, and the hair of other animals: is it not?"

"Yes, commonly of these things; and to understand what I am going to tell you, I think it will be necessary first to say something about the hatter's trade. The business of the man who makes a hat is to mix up wool or hair in such a way that it will stick together and make felt; or something like a piece of thick, strong cloth. To do this, he does not weave the hairs together, for they are of different kinds, and of different lengths, and it would be endless work to weave every one in; besides the cloth or felt would not be thick enough when it was done."

"How do they stick together then, Uncle Philip?"

"Why, boys, their sticking together is owing to something in the hairs themselves. I will show you. Pull a hair out of your head; now hold it just between the ends of your two fore-fingers, and rub the fingers gently against each other."

"Why, Uncle Philip! see, the hair is moving towards my body."

"Very true; and if you will turn it with the other end towards you, and rub your fingers as before, you will see it move from your body."

"This is very strange, Uncle Philip: the hair is smooth; how can my fingers make it move so?"

"No, that is a mistake, boys, the hair is not smooth. If some kinds of coarse hair are seen through the microscope, each one will seem to be, not one hair, but ten or twelve smaller ones, which are joined at the root, and form a hollow tube, like a straw; and sometimes it will have joints just like some kinds of grass or straw. In some sorts of finer hair you cannot see this even with the microscope; but you can feel it, as you did just now when you moved your fingers. These joints overlap one another, just as if you should take several pieces of straw and stick them into each other. I will show you some pictures of hairs as seen through the microscope, and then these joints will be plain enough."

"These are strange-looking hairs, Uncle Philip."

"Yes, they are curious; but now you may see why, when hairs are worked together, they may be made to stick to each other. These rough parts catch into each other, and hook themselves; and the more you press them or move them, the more closely you work them into one solid mass, which you cannot easily pull to pieces. Besides, you must remember that the hairs will work only one way, as you found out just now when your finger ends caught upon the little joints and moved them along. Now, suppose that a very large heap of hairs, or wool, or fur, after it is made ready, should be put upon a table, and covered with a linen cloth, and pressed down in different directions. Each hair would begin to move in the direction of its root, just as it did between your fingers, and so all would be joined together at last into one solid piece."

"We understand you, Uncle Philip."

"Then you understand, boys, the way in which a hat is made. These hairs are all worked together by the hands of the hat-maker, and to make them work more easily (for curled hair, such as wool, does not move easily) the hatter uses hot water, and dips his hat in it while he is working it. After it is done, it is died, and then put upon a wooden block to give it shape, and is ironed smooth."

"And this is the way, then, Uncle Philip, to make hats: it is curious, is it not?"

"Yes, boys; but plain enough when you come to examine into it. And the best stuff for the hatters is such hair as has most joints ready to catch into each other: the rabbit's hair is very good, and for that reason."

"And is it possible, Uncle Philip, that any bird can do such work as this?"

"Not only possible, boys, but true. There are several birds very expert at making felt, and their nest appears like a piece of hatter's felt, or double-milled woollen cloth. I do not mean to say that it is as close and solid as the hat or cloth; it would feel in your fingers looser than either, still it is quite close; and when you examine it, you will find it put together in the same way; it is all carded into one mass, and not woven together thread by thread, or hair by hair."

"And are there many birds able to do such work, Uncle Philip?"

"I told you, boys, that there were several. The chief article which they use is wool, but with this many other things will be found mixed—sometimes, upon the outside, fine moss—sometimes pieces of a spider's web rolled up into a little bundle—sometimes, when cotton can be had, they will use small bunches of cotton-wool; but sheep's wool they must have, and by means of that, they contrive to make, with the other things I have mentioned, a felt wonderfully smooth."

"Is it smooth on the outside, Uncle Philip?"

"Sometimes quite so; but always as smooth on the inside, when it is first made, as if it had been felted together by the hat-maker. There is another thing curious enough in some of these nests. The hatter, you know, binds the rim of his hat to make it stronger; and some of these felt-making birds will make their nests stronger by a binding all around them of dry grass stems, and sometimes of slender roots, and they take care to cover these grass stems, or roots, with their felt-work of moss and wool. But there is something else not less strange, I think, than the binding. It is this: they will build their nests in the fork of a shrub or tree; and to keep them from falling, they will work bands of this felt round all the branches which touch the nest, both below and at the sides. And those parts of the nest which touch the large branches are always thinner than the other parts, which have no support; in those parts the nest is nothing but a thin wall of felt, fixed around to fit the shape of the branch, and that is enough to make that part of the nest warm and soft. Here is a picture of one of these felt-nests, fastened in the way of which I have been telling you."

"This, boys, is the nest of the chaffinch. The goldfinch makes a nest of the same kind, only rather neater and smoother than that of the chaffinch; for it takes pains to show nothing but the wool, and covers up all the other materials which it uses."

"Uncle Philip, do these birds all use the same things to make their nests?"

"All use wool, boys; but the truth is, that birds will commonly take for their nests that article which they can get most easily, if it will suit. A gentleman, named Bolton, tried this with some goldfinches. He saw a pair of these birds beginning to build in his garden; they had laid the foundation of their nest with moss, and grass, and such things, as they commonly use: he scattered some wool about in different parts of the garden; the birds took the wool: afterward he scattered cotton; they took the cotton: on the next day he gave them some very fine down; they took that, and finished the nest with it, and a very handsome nest it was."

"How long were they in making it, Uncle Philip?"

"Three days. The canary-bird, boys, which you sometimes see in cages, when free, builds a nest of the same kind. But the most curious felt-makers among the birds, are in Africa. There is the Cape-tit, a bird in the southern part of Africa, which builds a very strange nest: it is shaped like a bottle of India-rubber, as thick as a coarse worsted stocking, and made of cotton, and down, and other things felted together. On one side of the nest there is something like a pocket, and here is a picture of it."

"Uncle Philip, what is that pocket for?"

"Why, boys, some have supposed that it was for the male bird to sit on and keep watch, while the female was inside of the nest sitting on the eggs; but I think this is a mistake. And some have said, that when the female leaves the nest, and the male wishes to go too, he sits in this pocket, and beats against the side of the nest with his wing until he has made the edges of the top meet, and thus shuts up the mouth of the nest, and keeps off insects and other animals that would eat the young ones; but I do not believe this story."

"Then what do you think the pocket is for. Uncle Philip?"

"I think, boys, that it is nothing but a perch, or place for the bird to sit on before going into the nest. If the bird had no such place for stopping, it might be troubled to get into its nest. The mouth is small, and the bird could not enter it with its wings spread; and if it should alight on the edge of the nest constantly, it would injure it, for it is but slightly made. And I will tell you another reason why I think this is the use of the pocket. There is another bird in South Africa, called the pinc-pinc, which is the same species of bird as the Cape-tit; and this bird we know uses its little nest built upon the side of the other merely as a resting-place before going into the nest."

"Uncle Philip, does the pinc-pinc build its nest like a bottle, as the Cape-tit does?"

"No, boys, not so smooth, but felted in the same way. The nest is made mostly of the down of plants, and is either snowy white or brownish, according to the colour of the down. On the outside it is a clumsy-looking thing, but fastened, like the nest of the chaffinch, very firmly to the branches near it, so that you cannot take it away without breaking it to pieces. But rough as the outside is, you would be astonished, if you were to look at the inside, and see how a bird, and a small one too, with nothing but its wings, and tail, and feet, and bill for tools, could ever have worked the down of plants together, so as to make of it a piece of fine cloth. It has a narrow neck, something like a chimney, at the top of it. This is the entrance; and at the lower end of it there is a lump, which appears something like a small nest stuck on to the larger one; sometimes there will be three or four of these small-looking nests, and sometimes when there is a branch near the mouth of the nest which makes a good resting-place, there will be none. Here is a picture, boys, of the outside of one of these nests.

These birds are easily watched; and a French gentleman, who has written the best account of the birds of Africa, [11] says that he has found at least a hundred of these nests, and watched the birds for a whole morning together, and never saw one sitting on the small nest as a watch-bird; but has seen both the male and female arrive at the nest together, perch upon the nearest branch, hop from this upon the edge of the little nest, and then putting their heads into the hole, dart into the large nest. And now, boys, what do you think about the use of these little pockets?"

"Oh, Uncle Philip, we think that what you tell us is always right, because you know a great deal more than we do."

"But, boys, you do not understand me. I may be mistaken, though I do know more than you. I have been telling you my reasons for thinking these little pockets are nothing but perches. Do you think the reasons are good ones?"

"Why, yes, Uncle Philip, we do. The French gentleman who watched the birds so much would have seen some of them using the pockets for a place to keep watch in, if they were made for that."

"Right, boys. What I wish to teach you is to think for yourselves. Whenever any one gives you a reason for a thing, just ask yourselves, 'Is this a good reason?'"

"But, Uncle Philip, how did it happen that the other people who saw these birds should have said that these pockets were for the male bird to sit in and watch?"

"I suppose, boys, that they really thought so; but then they had not noticed the birds enough to find out the truth. It requires a great deal of time and patience to find out the truth about animals: and this is the reason why so many mistakes have been printed about them. It is a pity that such mistakes have been made; for really there is enough that is very curious about them, without men's making stories to appear strange. But I think that there will be fewer mistakes made in future."

"Why so, Uncle Philip?"

"Because, boys, men are taking more pains to see for themselves. There are more naturalists now than there were formerly; and I hope there will be more still, especially in our own large and beautiful country, where there have not yet been many. I hope that natural history will be studied in all our schools before a great while. But let us go back to our African birds.

"There is another kind which Mr. Vaillant speaks of, and I will tell you of that. He calls it the capocier, and he had a very fine opportunity to watch two of them. It is a bird easily made gentle, and he had managed by feeding two of them to make them so tame that they would come into his tent and hop about several times in a day, though he never had them in a cage. When it became time for them to build a nest, they staid away for some time, and would come to the tent once only in four or five days. At last they began to come regularly, as before, and Mr. Vaillant soon found out what they came for. They had seen upon his table cotton and moss and flax, which he used to stuff the skins of birds, and which were always lying there; and the capociers had come for these things, to build their nest of them. They would take up large bunches of them in their bills and fly away. Mr. Vaillant followed and watched them to see the nest built, and found them at work in the corner of a garden, by the side of a spring, in a large plant which grew under the shade of a tree. They were building in the fork of the branches, and had laid the foundation, which was about four inches high and six inches across. This part was made of moss and flax, mixed with grass and tufts of cotton. The next day this gentleman never left the side of the nest: the female was at work building, and the male brought the materials. In the morning the male bird made twenty-nine journeys to Mr. Vaillant's table for flax and cotton and moss; and in the afternoon he made seventeen. He would help his mate to trample down and press the cotton with his body, so as to make it into felt. Whenever he came with a load, he would put it either upon the edge of the nest or upon some branch within reach of the female.

"After he began to help the female at her work, he would often break off, and begin to play; and sometimes, as if in mischief, he would pull down a little of her work. She would get angry, and peck him with her bill: but he still continued to vex her, until at last, to save her work from being pulled down, she would stop working, and fly off from bush to bush, to tease him. They would then make up the quarrel, and she set about her work, while he would sing most delightfully for several minutes. After his song was finished, he would go to work again, until he got into a new fit of mischief and frolic, and then he would torment her as before.

"On the third day the birds began to build the walls, after having repeatedly pressed the bottom, and turned themselves round upon it in all directions, to make the nest solid. They first made a plain border all around; this they trimmed, and on it they piled up tufts of cotton, which they felted in by beating and pressing with their breasts and wings; and if any part stuck out, they worked it in with their bills, so as to make all perfectly smooth and firm. And they worked their nest round the branches near it, just as the chaffinch does.

"In seven days they finished it. It was as white as snow, and on the outside it was nine inches high, and not smooth or regular in its shape; but in the inside it was shaped exactly like a hen's egg, with the small end up: the hollow was five inches high, and between four and five inches across; and it was so neatly felted together that it might have been taken for a piece of fine cloth a little worn; and so close that you could not take away any part without tearing the nest in pieces. Here is a picture of the nest, boys, and it is wonderful work for a small bird."

"Oh, Uncle Philip! we like the capociers very much. When they were tired of working, they were ready to play; and when they had played enough, they went back to work. Do not you think there was good sense in that?"

"Yes, boys, I do: it will not do, either to work all the time or to play all the time. All that we have to do is to take care that we do not spend more time than we should at either. But there is a sweet little bird, boys, quite common in our own country, which makes felt: would you like to hear of it?"

"Oh yes, Uncle Philip. What bird is it?"

"It is the humming-bird. Here is a drawing of its nest. It is about an inch deep, and an inch across; and from a little distance, appears more like a small knot upon the branch than like a bird's nest. The outside of the nest from which this picture is made, was covered with a kind of bluish-gray lichen, that grows in scales upon old trees and fences: this seemed to be glued on by the bird in some way or other. The inside was the felt, and was made of the fine down from seeds that float about in the air, mixed with the down from mullein-weed and stalks of fine grass. This, boys, is the smallest nest made by a bird, I believe; and some insects make larger houses for themselves than this bird does.

"But I have not time at present to talk with you any longer, as I have letters to write; and therefore I must bid you good morning."

"Farewell, Uncle Philip."