as there is nothing in the"nest"). He tried to take the twig back via the glass house route; but it again fell to the ground. He aban- don it and examined numerous others, seeming to try and crimp them in his bill. The sound of this action was plainly audible. None of these satisfied him. Next he tried to pull apart a fragment of old nest No. 5 lying nearby; but gave that up also and wandered away. First twig is the difficult one. In all of these endeavors it is the first twig that involves the most difficulty in getting a start. It appears to be a matter of luck whether it will stay or fall down. A twig with no crotches or branch- lets almost invariably does. Even those so equipped usually do. If not at the time of the attempt to place them, at any rate, sooner or later. Unless the site is well chosen, it is somewhat of a miracle that any of them stick. By keeping at it persistently, one will stick in the end, of course. This increases the chances of the next one remaining in place, and so on, until finally the problem, almost entirely by chance as it appears, solves itself. (About 10 o'clock two wrens were going in and out of the house in which the brood of six was reared last year. One of them, I think, is the cheeky one, who has been especially keen on following me up this morning while I was watching the thrashers. Whether it is this one will, no doubt, appear in due course.) Wrens together, At 11:10 I went to the dormitory tree; the thrashers were not one carries fibres as it comes for worm. It looks as if "my" bird had a mate and the next step is to build a nest. The thrashers were down on the bank. When a truck going by frightened them, they came up and "did sun-fits" along-side me, B so close that I could have stepped on him, for about 25 minutes. G was about a foot from B and I had an excellent opportunity to compare the