Winners in life's race; or the great backboned family
Arabella Burton Buckley
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, May 20, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 Excerpt: ... the rough strong basketwork of the crow or the magpie, to the wren's thickly-woven ball, or the finches' matted cups; while in America the Hang-nestsweave their lovely pear-shaped homes, and suspend them like fruit from the tips of the branches; and in India and China the Tailor-birds actually sew leaves together with cotton fibre or cobweb threads, which they draw through with their slender bill and strengthen with saliva. The smaller the bird and the more delicate its feet and bill, the more closely woven, as a rule, is its nest. Yet all are built with care; the mother bird, as a rule, choosing the position and laying the twigs, while the father helps her to collect the materials. So rapidly do these f J little creatures work, that among our smaller English birds the early morning sees the work begun, and by evening it i& ended. Other birds are longer, according to the amount of material they have to collect; but all labour industriously till the Orthotomus sutorius. Nest of the Tailor-Bird of India or China. cradle is finished, and then begins the laying, the sitting, the tender care of the mother for her little ones, and of the father for his wife and brood. And indeed there is much need both of skill in nest building and of watchfulness for many a long day after, for if the perchers are the highest, they are not by any means the strongest of birds; and while they feed on insects and smaller creatures, they have to guard their little ones with anxious care against the larger birds of prey which rule as masters in the higher regions of the air. It is on rocky pinnacles and in the clefts of inaccessible heights among the mountains that we must look for the nests of the Eagle, the Vulture, and the Falcon. Strong, powerful, and untiring in flight, they...