YOUNG BUILDERS.
The compiler of the annual and always interesting record of birds in the London parks has made a great success of his story of the moorhen who after several failures incorporated a red and a blue bus ticket in her nest in Hyde Park. The
moorhen is no Bower bird, but it is of all our birds—except perhaps the cock wren—the most ardent nest-builder. But the art differs according to the date and need. For several years on a very familiar reach I have had great difficulty in finding the first nest. This year it was a yard behind the edge of an overhanging bank and itself invisible, though you could detect the red patch of the sitting bird. Everything was done to conceal this nest but a little later the young and the parents together built a nest that advertised itself. It was in the open and a solid structure designed merely as a cubicle to preserve the birds from water enemies ; and I have no doubt that if 'bus tickets had been available they would have been used. Do any other young birds build their own dormitories ? But town life changes instinct. Urban sparrows have certainly increased their admiration for colour, and will use gaudy petals—of laburnum and crocus for example— for the adornment of their garish nests.
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