"Not quite, boys; but still it is very fair weaving, and done as our weaving is, by working a hair or thread in and out between other hairs and threads, or roots, or bits of stick and grass. The best way to see it, is to remove the outside work of hay or roots very carefully, or to take away the felt-work of wool or moss, and you may see a round piece of hair-cloth, sometimes finer, and sometimes coarser, according to the bird that made it, and the things of which it is made. In the common sparrow's nest the hair-cloth is very thin, so that you can see through it easily; but still every hair is woven in singly, and always bent, so as to lie smooth in the bottom of the nest. And there are no ends of hairs left sticking out; they are always worked into the moss which makes the outside of the nest." "Uncle Philip, how do the birds make the hairs lie smooth in their places?" "About that, boys, there is some uncertainty. Some persons think that the birds have a kind of glue in their mouths by which they make them stick; and others suppose that they wet the hairs, so as to make them bend. But there are much better weavers than the common sparrow. The red-breast and the yellow-hammer are both better workmen." "Where do they get hairs. Uncle Philip?" "They find bunches of them sticking in the cracks of a fence or post where a horse or cow has been rubbing; and some of these little creatures, when they find such a bunch, will pull it to pieces, and work it in, hair by hair." "Are there many of these weaver-birds. Uncle Philip?" "Yes, boys, a great many: our country is quite full of them. There is the mountain ant-catcher,[12] which will weave a nest of dry grass, and wind the blades round the branches of a tree; and the king-bird,[13] which first makes a basket frame-work of slender sticks, and afterward weaves in wool and tow, and lines it with hairs and dry grass. There is another, too, the white-eyed fly-catcher, which some have called the politician. This bird builds its nest and hangs it up by the upper edge of the two sides on a vine. The outside is made of pieces of rotten wood, threads of dry stalks or weeds, pieces of paper, commonly old newspapers; and all these are woven together with caterpillar's silk, and lined with fine dry grass and hair." "Uncle Philip, why do they call it the politician? What is a politician?"