Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/122

106 or bush, with large, soft leaves, and drawing two of them together, proceeds to stitch them to one another round their edges. At that season the silk-cotton tree is bursting its pods and scattering its white clusters, so the tiny tailor has seldom any difficulty in finding cotton, which it spins into thread with its deft little feet and beak. But if it can get ready-made thread, so much the better. Jerdon tells of one which regularly watched the dirzie in the verandah, and as soon as he had left his seat for the day, pounced down upon his carpet and carried off his ends of thread in triumph. The bird's needle is its sharp beak. Piercing a hole in the leaf, it passes the thread through and knots it at the other side, and so on till it has joined the two leaves by their edges all round and made a neat pocket, or purse, with its mouth at the top, or a little to one side. Then a soft padding of cotton inside makes it ready to receive its treasure of three or four pretty little eggs. They vary a good deal in colour, but are generally white, thinly spotted with light-red. I have often seen a nest made of a single large leaf, and, on the other hand, where broad-leaved plants are scarce, the bird will use more than two; but the fewer leaves the less tailoring, as the bird knows.

Last monsoon I was standing in the verandah of a friend's house in Bombay when I saw an eager Tailor Bird tugging desperately at a coir mat. I felt sure that it must be in straits for something to make its nest of, and knowing that my friend had a kind heart for the deserving poor, I brought the case to his notice the same evening. He promptly stuck a bunch of clean cotton wool in the trellis, and almost