as I have, walking out along the branches of high trees on the banks of the Limpopo, and on, from tree to tree, they would not go as far as that. However, it is to these two circumstances, as I believe, that these great social nests of the Weaver-birds in South Africa, principally owe their immunity. Others of the family make separate nests, which they attach to the end of leaves, twigs, small branches, or slender swaying creepers that hang down over water—generally a river—so that they cannot be got at by any monkey, however small, or even by snakes, which are still more redoubtable enemies. These graceful “pendent nests and procreant cradles,” swung and danced by the lightest air, are of all sorts of shapes—rounded, or gourd-shaped, or rounded with a sort of stocking hanging down from it—and are all of them beautifully woven with the stems and blades of various grasses. In this plaiting of the natural growing grass into a fabric, one might think that the height of bird architecture had been reached, but there is a Tailor-bird as well as a Weaver-bird, and what he does is perhaps even more wonderful, since he uses a needle and thread, his bill doing duty for the needle. Having picked some holes along the edges of two or more leaves that hang near to one another, the bird passes a thread through them, in and out, all the way along, and then draws them together with it, tightening the thread, as we should do, and making a knot at the end of it, so that it may not come undone. It has previously made another knot, or bunch, at the other end of the thread, to prevent that slipping either; but how it does it, or how it makes the thread that it uses (for it is said to manufacture it, not merely to take a fibre or grass-stem, at least not always) nobody seems to know. As the Tailor-bird is a native of India, and is not shy, but comes into gardens and compounds, where, no doubt, it often builds its nest, this want of information is not much to the credit of naturalists in that country. But perhaps it is a difficult thing to see, however near the bird may come. Jerdon, in his _Birds of India_, tells us that “it makes its nest of cotton, wool, and various other soft materials,” and that “it draws together one leaf or more—generally two leaves—on each side of the nest, and stitches them together with cotton, either woven by itself, or cotton thread picked up; and after passing the thread through the leaf, it makes a knot at the end of it.” This sounds as if the nest was made first and the leaves drawn round it afterwards, but nobody would suppose this, or, indeed, that it was possible, so I am not going to believe it till somebody who has seen the bird at work tells me that this is its _modus operandi_.[2] The Tailor-bird is quite small and of sober appearance. It has a long tail though, which, in the illustrations, sticks right up, whilst the beak has a very delicate tactile appearance, almost suggesting a needle, though not quite the kind that we use.