The Value of Mud The only creatures that found some
satisfaction in the unprecedented rains of March were the thrushes. To judge by one example, they started building as soon as ever the snow began to melt, and enjoyed the provision of the mud desired for the lining of the nest. They use mud, not only as a separate material, but as a mortar, in Britain as abroad. I have watched that most comely thrush, which Americans call a robin, drawing long bents through slush before weaving it into the structure; and just the right sort of pool is not easily found. Swallows, of course, like some South American mud-builders, may wait for weeks before the right conditions are available. The blackbird may use as much mud as the thrush in the composition of the nest, though she does not use it as a lining. It is astonishing how much mud rooks employ, and they carry it—or so it appears—in neat dollops, not only by chance adhesion to sticks. Some of titeir this year's nests were thrown down by the gales. In one such nest, many years ago, I found a family of earth-worms, unquestion- ably bred in the elm tops, like the fishes in Horace's description of the great flood.
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