204 ME. SPEUCE ON FIVE NEW PLANTS FEOM EASTEEN PEETJ. 



more or less beset with sharp conical prickles, on which account 

 it is constantly selected by the sagacious Troopial {Cassicus icte- 

 ronotuSy Swains.) for its long pensile nests, — though, as if doubting 

 that this were sufficient to render them inaccessible, it hangs 

 them on the very point of the outermost twigs. All the species 

 of Troopial I have seen on the Amazon and Eio Negro, show 

 similar foresight in selecting a place where to rear their infant 

 (polonies ; and the robber who, observing no impediment from 

 below, ventures to climb to their eyry, finds, to his cost, that it is 

 defended by some large wasps' nest, or by hordes of stinging 

 ants. 



