While the big flamingoes are so shy, the little oven-birds don't care who sees them--provided they can see _him_ first. This is possibly because they want to keep an eye on any suspicious movements; for they make it an invariable rule to build so that their front doors will face the road. But really I think they do this, not because they are suspicious, but because they want to be neighborly and arrange their homes so they can sit on their front stoop and watch the crowd go by. They not only have their doors where they can see what's going on, but they nearly always build near the country road or the village street, and in the most conspicuous place they can find, instead of staying off by themselves in those vast, lonesome woods of Brazil where they lived before man came. When a nest is to be built the oven-bird picks up the first likely-looking root fibre, or a horsehair, or a hair from an old cow's tail, carries it to some pond or puddle and, with this binding material, works bits of mud into a little ball about the size of a filbert. Then he flies with this pellet to the place where the nest is going up. With clay balls like this laid down and then worked together, the two birds make the floor of their little house. On the outer edge of the floor they build up the walls. These walls they gradually incline inward, just as the Eskimos build their snow-block huts, until they form a dome with a little hole in it. The last little ball they bring goes to fill that little hole and then the house is done, so far as the walls and roof are concerned. Next, a front door is cut through the wall that faces the road. [Illustration: THE FRIENDLY DOOR THAT FACES THE ROAD Oven-birds make it a rule to build their adobe homes so that the front door will face the road. And they nearly always build near the road or the village street. Neighborly little creatures!] From the front door a partition is built reaching nearly to the back of the house, shutting off the front room from the family bedroom. After the eggs are laid Papa Oven-bird stays in the front room--or thereabouts--while mamma sets in the back room. The object of the little partition seems to be to protect mother and the eggs and, when they come, the babies from wind and rain. When the four or five baby birds arrive both papa and mamma put in most of their time, of course, feeding them. The nests of the oven-birds weigh eight or nine pounds. The work of these little feathered farmers and their wives reminds us in more ways than one of that of Mrs. Mason-Bee,[22] but they evidently have quite different notions about housekeeping; for, although their residences are so big, the oven-birds would evidently rather build than clean house, while with Mrs. Bee it's just the other way. The nests of the oven-birds are so thick and strong they often stand for two or three years in spite of the rains; but the birds build a new nest every year, nevertheless. [22] Chapter VI. III. THE MOUND-BUILDERS