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 little creatures work, that among our smaller English birds the early morning sees the work begun, and by evening it is ended. Other birds are longer, according to the amount of material they have to collect; but all labour industriously till the 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 sail majestically high up in the air, not to sing a joyful song like the lark, but with piercing eye to search every corner for miles around, for animals of all sizes, from the dead ox or mule to the tiny living mouse or bird, which can serve for a meal. [Illustration: Fig. 47. The Eagle bringing food to its young.--(_From a coloured lithograph by Keulemann._)] It needs only a glance at them to see that they are strong destroyers, with their powerful wings, their sharp hooked beaks, their long toes with pointed claws, and their strong muscular thighs; and because most men admire strength and power, we call such birds _noble_, though their nobility chiefly consists in loving their little ones, and asking neither pity nor shelter from others, as they themselves are pitiless in return. Those which we are apt to like the least, the carrion-feeding Vultures of hot countries, are really the most useful and harmless, for they feed chiefly on dead animals and clear the land of carrion; and for this reason neither their beak nor their claws are as strong as those of the fighting birds. But though they are grand in flight they are but repulsive-looking birds when compared with the lordly eagles. The beautiful Golden Eagle of Europe, with its dark plumage and the golden sheen on its back and tail, is indeed a splendid object, as “He clasps the crag with hooked hands, Close to the sun in lonely lands,”