26 INTRO DUCTION. 



The Oriole weaves a neat little bag of bark, fine grass 

 and wool, often strengthened with pieces of string or 

 horse-hair, and hangs it from the twigs of some waving 

 bough, which rocks to and fro in the wind, and there 

 in the midst of a storm which would demolish a struc- 

 ture of greater weight and firmness, she sits at her 

 ease, under the protection of Him, " without whose 

 notice not a sparrow falleth to the ground." The 

 White-eyed Vireo, whose nest is in the shape of an 

 inverted cone, suspends it from the circling stems of 

 a running vine. The Whip-poor-will and the Chuck- 

 wills-widow merely scrape away the leaves near some 

 prostrate log, or among the thick undergrowth of the 

 forest, and lay their eggs upon the bare ground ; but 

 so nearly does their color resemble that of the leaves 

 and earth, that it is almost impossible to discover 

 them unless their concealment is betrayed by the 

 flight of the bird. 



The number of eggs deposited in a nest varies 

 greatly. The Whip-poor-will lays two, the Partridge 

 from fifteen to twenty-four. The color also varies 

 much in the different species'; some are of a deep 

 and beautiful blue, others as white as snow; some 

 are marked with irregular blotches near the great 

 end, or spotted thickly all over with brown on a yel- 

 lowish or light olive-colored ground ; but perhaps 

 the most common color is one uniform speckled mix- 

 ture of various shades of gray. Mostly but one 

 brood is raised in a season, but frequently two, and 

 with those birds \rhich arrive early sometimes three. 



