486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



these nests that, when occupied, concealed the birds, were all much 

 smaller and the nest itself deeper than in those nests where conceal- 

 ment was not considered in the construction, these latter being in 

 every way much like the nest of the orchard oriole {Icterus spurius). 



Originally, in all probability, when its enemies were more numer- 

 ous, especially the smaller hawks, the nest of the Baltimore oriole w r as 

 perfectly closed at the top, and with a side opening ; but, of the many 

 scores of this nest that we have met, we have never seen a nest of 

 this bird so constructed. 



The very fact of the Baltimore oriole constituting a partial excep- 

 tion to Mr. Wallace's supposed law of birds'-nests is, we think, here 

 shown to be a proof of the correctness of his theory. 



-*v- 



SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF FRANCIS IIUBEE. 



Br Mrs. S. B. IIEEEICK. 



FRANCIS HUBER was born in Geneva, July 2, 1750. His father, 

 John Iluber, was a man of many and varied gifts ; he was con- 

 sidered one of the wits of the day, and was an accomplished musi- 

 cian, poet, painter, and sculptor. The art of cutting landscapes and 

 silhouettes from paper may almost be called his creation. He attained 

 snch proficiency in executing likenesses in this way that, with his 

 hands behind him, he tore from a card a correct profile of Voltaire. 

 The curious combination of talent and caprice which characterized 

 most of his work is well illustrated by one of his attempts : he exe- 

 cuted a profile of Voltaire, upon one occasion, by allowing his cat to 

 bite from a slice of cheese portions which he successively presented to 

 her ! Besides his lighter social and artistic gifts, he possessed keen 

 powers of observation as a naturalist and considerable facility with 

 the pen, as is shown in his " Observations sur le Vol des Oiseaux de 

 Proie," Geneva, 1774. 



John Huber transmitted to his son most of his tastes, without that 

 discursiveness and caprice which so fatally marred his own career. 

 The boy, from his early childhood, attended lectures at the Genevan 

 College. The library, the cabinet, and the observations of his father, 

 early roused in him an ardent love for natural science ; he had begun 

 intelligently to observe Nature at an age when other children seem 

 hardly aware of her existence. Before he was fifteen years old, he 

 had completed a course of physics under De Saussure, and familiarized 

 himself with chemical manipulation in the laboratory of a relation, 

 w 7 ho was an obstinate alchemist. 



Intense application, together with the habit of reading late at night, 

 by dim lamp-light, or even by the light of the moon, seriously impaired 



