21 MAY 1932, Page 11

Before leaving Kew and its curiosities I must record the

queer choice for a nest of one of the scores of blackbirds, whose mates fill the Gardens with melody. She has built on a semi-tropical plant in a hothouse. The heat is enough to discompose the sitting bird, who is seen to gasp with open beak ; but she continues to brood and perhaps hopes that the extra warmth may bring on the eggs at a greater rate. A singularly odd blackbird's nest that I saw the other day in Herefordshire is wedged between the trunk of a young apple tree and the rabbit wire put up to protect the tree from sheep. The space is so narrow that the nest had to be made not circular but oval ; and indeed the pattern seems to fit the boat-like shape of the bird rather better than the cOn1n0a round.