In like manner, the homely Dendrocolaptidae possess the genius
for building, and an account of one of these small birds without its
nest would be like a biography of Sir Christopher Wren that made no
mention of his works. It was not strange then that when I saw this small
bird the question rose to my mind, what kind of nest does it build?
One morning in the month of October, the great breeding-time for birds
in the Southern Hemisphere, while cautiously picking my way through a
bed of eardoon bushes, the mysterious little creature flitted up and
perched among the clustering leaves quite near to me. It uttered a
feeble grasshopper-like chirp; and then a second individual, smaller,
paler-coloured, and if possible shyer than the first, showed itself for
two or three seconds, after which both birds dived once more into
concealment. How glad I was to see them! for here they were, male and
female, in a suitable spot in my own fields, where they evidently meant
to breed. Every day after that I paid them one cautious visit, and by
waiting from five to fifteen minutes, standing motionless among the
thistles, I always succeeded in getting them to show themselves for a
few moments. I could easily have secured them then, but my wish was to
discover their nesting habits; and after watching for some days, I was
rewarded by finding their nest; then for three days more I watched it
slowly progressing towards completion, and each time I approached it one
of the small birds would flit out to vanish into the herbage.
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