This should teach us to plant wild fruits and berries for the birds, who prefer them to garden fruits." As the children turned from the road into Rap's garden they saw that it held a great many birds.

The bushes and trees were all untrimmed, and the old house with its shingled sides and coast-backed roof was covered with a trumpet-creeper and some grape vines.
"What a lovely place for Hummingbirds!" cried Olive.
"And Martins," added the Doctor, pointing to a bird-box with ten or twelve divisions in it, that was fastened under the eaves.
"The Warbler's nest is here," said Rap, leading the way to a back fence and feeling very proud at the admiration his home was receiving.
The children tiptoed up and each took a peep into the cup-shaped nest.
The little gold and olive mother, trusting Rap from past experience, gave a quick flip of her wings, and perched on a wild blackberry bush near by.

The outside of the nest looked as if it were made of silvery-gray linen floss.

There were some horsehairs woven in the lining, and here and there something that looked like sponge peeped out between the strands which held the nest firmly in the crotch of the elder stem.
"What is that soft stuff ?" whispered Dodo.
"It is wool scraped from the stalks of young ferns," said the Doctor; "the soft brown wool that is wrapped round the leaves to keep them warm in their winter sleep until they stretch out of the ground and feel the warmth of the sun.

The little Warblers gather it in their beaks and mat it into a sort of felt." "There is something else in the nest-lining that looks like feathers," said Nat.
"That is dandelion down." "Don't you think, Doctor, that this nest is very thick underneath ?" asked Rap.