Suppose a lady stands five feet four
inches high, and the nest placed in her hand measures two inches across:
the difference is immense. The bird who built it is smaller than the
nest. The thing is reversed, and it does not look tiny to the bird. The
horsehair or fibre, which to us is an inch or two long, to the bird is a
bamboo or cane three or four feet in length. No one would consider it
difficult to weave cane or willow wands as tall as himself. The girls at
Luton perform much more difficult feats in weaving straw-plait for
bonnets than any bird accomplishes. A rook's nest looked at in the same
way is about as large to the bird as a small breakfast-parlour, and is
composed of poles. To understand birds you must try and see things as
they see them, not as you see them. They are quite oblivious of your
sentiments or ideas, and their actions have no relation to yours. A whole
system of sentiment and conduct has been invented for birds and animals
based entirely upon the singular method of attributing to them plans
which might occur to a human being. The long-tailed tit often builds its
nest in the midst of blackthorn thickets (which afford it the lichen it
uses), or in deep hawthorn bushes. A man comes along, sees the nest, and
after considerable exertion--having to thrust himself into the hedge--and
after some pain, being pricked by the thorns, succeeds, with bleeding
hands, in obtaining possession of it. 'Ah,' he moralises, 'what wonderful
instinct on the part of this little creature to surround itself with a
zareba like the troops after Osman Digma! Just look at my hands.
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