atched, with the mother swimming
behind, pushing them along with her beak, or towing them by the loose
end of a twig, must be a very singular and interesting sight.

[Illustration]

An Ostrich has very different views in regard to a nest from a little
grebe. Instead of wishing to take its nest about with it, wherever it
goes, the ostrich does not care for a great deal of nest-work.

It is, however, a bird of more domestic habits than some writers would
have us believe; for although it does cover up its eggs in the sand,
and then let the sun help hatch them, it is not altogether inattentive
to its nest. The ostrich makes a large nest in the sand, where, it is
said, the eggs of several families are deposited. These eggs are very
carefully arranged in the great hole or basin that has been formed in
the soft sand, and, during the daytime, they are often covered up and
left to be gently heated by the rays of the sun. But the ostrich sits
upon her nest at night, and in many cases the male bird has been known
to sit upon the eggs all day. An ostrich nest is a sort of a wholesale
establishment. There are not only a great many eggs in the nest, but
dozens of them are often found lying about on the sand around it.

This apparent waste is explained by some naturalists by the statement
that these scattered eggs are intended for the food of the young ones
when they are hatched. This may be true; but in that case young
ostriches cannot be very particular about the flavor of the eggs they
eat. A few days in the hot sun of the desert would be very likely to
make eggs of any kind taste rather strongly. But ostrich eggs are so
large, and their shells are so thick, that they may keep better than
the eggs to which we are accustomed.

From nests which are built flat on the ground, let us now go to some
that are placed as high from the earth as their builders can get them.
The nests of the Storks are of this kind.

A pair of storks will select, as a site for their nest, a lofty place
among the rocks; the top of some old ruins; or, when domesticated, as
they often are, the top of a chimney. But when there are a number of
storks living together in a community, they very often settle in a
grove of tall trees and build their nests on the highest branches.

[Illustration: THE NEST OF A STORK.]

In these they lay their eggs, and hatch out their young ones. Soon
after the time when these young storks are able to fly, the whole
community ge