Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

647 страница из 895

The bottle tit, or long-tailed tit, builds the most beautiful of all English nests. It is oval in shape, like a leather bottle, and outside is one mass of that crisp white moss which one finds on apple trees and old gate-posts. There is one tiny hole the circumference of a child’s finger, and the interior is choked to its very mouth with soft and downy feathers.

These nests sell at a high price in towns to egg-collectors, closet naturalists, and buyers of curiosities.

“You’ll make your money of that, guv’nor. It’s a stunner—​aint it?”

“Not a bad one of its sort; but, lor’ love ye, the job is to find a customer. It’s only one here and there who knows what’s worth buying and what’s best left alone. Still, ye see, it won’t hurt by keepin’, and it won’t die, as many of the birds do. I’ve been very unlucky wi’ my birds of late.”

“Have you, though? They croak, I s’pose?”

“That’s it; right you are. They do croak, and no mistake. Howsomdever, it can’t be helped. Do you know of any more nests, young shaver—​some with bigger eggs, you know?”