An Odd Nest
Not only birds find strange nesting sites. Desultory search in a clump of aucubas discovered a nest that bore some resemblance to a wren's that had half fallen forward. There was no discoverable entrance save a slight depression towards one end. The finder conjectured that a nest had fallen from the overhanging fir into the laurels and the idea was strengthened when at last the lump of leaves and grass and moss was lifted from its place. It appeared to be entirely unattached. On a closer inspection still no entrance hole could be found, and the lump was torn open. The centre was made chiefly of old leaves very much cut up and it was only as the lump was on the point of being thrown away that a number of little naked bodies were seen in the midst. The nest belonged to a mouse. The little harvest mouse of course- makes a nest as neatly fixed to stem or stalk as, say, the reed warbler's. The dormouse may weave its neat winter home of grass in almost any place above or on the ground ; but it is, I think, unusual for a larger mouse to tie up its wee bit heap of leaves and stubble in such a place, some two feet or more off the ground.
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