. The naturalist in La Plata . d easily have secured them then, but my wishwas to discover their nesting habits; and afterwatching for some days, I was rewarded by findingtheir nest ; then for three days more I watched itslowly progressing towards completion, and eachtime I approached it one of the small birds wouldflit out to vanish into the herbage. The structurewas about six inches long, and not more than twoinches in diameter, and was placed horizontally ona broad stiff cardoon leaf, sheltered by other leavesabove. It was made of the finest dry grass looselywoven, and formed a simple perfe
. The naturalist in La Plata . d easily have secured them then, but my wishwas to discover their nesting habits; and afterwatching for some days, I was rewarded by findingtheir nest ; then for three days more I watched itslowly progressing towards completion, and eachtime I approached it one of the small birds wouldflit out to vanish into the herbage. The structurewas about six inches long, and not more than twoinches in diameter, and was placed horizontally ona broad stiff cardoon leaf, sheltered by other leavesabove. It was made of the finest dry grass looselywoven, and formed a simple perfectly straight tube,open at both ends. The aperture was so small thatI could only insert my little finger, and the bird Seen and Lost. 371 could not, of course, have turned round in so narrowa passage, and so always went in at one end andleft by the other. On visiting the spot on thefourth day I found, to my intense chagrin, that thedelicate fabric had been broken and thrown downby some animal ; also, that the birds had utterly. Small Spine-tail and Nest. vanished—for I sought them in vain, both there andin evei^y weedy and thistly spot in the neighbour-hood. The bird without the nest had seemed auseless thing to possess; now, for all my pains, Ihad only a wisp of fine dry grass in my hand, andno bird. The shy, modest little creature, dwelling b b 2 372 The Naturalist in La Plata. violet-like amidst clustering leaves, and even whenshowing itself still half-hidden from the eye, wasthereafter to be only a tantalizing image in , my case was not so hopeless as that of theimagined lapidary ; for however rare a species maybe, and near to its final extinction, there mustalways be many individuals existing, and I wascheered by the thought that I might yet meet withone at some future time. And, even if this par-ticular species was not to gladden my sight again,there were others, scores and hundreds more, andat any moment I might expect to see one shining, aliving gem, on Na
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecta, booksubjectzoology
