304 INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 



slow, but interesting musician, nearly ceases his song, a 

 few feeble farewell notes only being heard to the first 

 week in September. 



This species, like the rest of the genus, constructs a 

 very beautiful pendulous nest, about 3 inches deep, and 

 'H^ in diameter. One, which I now more particularly 

 describe, is suspended from the forked twig of an oak, in 

 the near neighbourhood of a dwellinghouse in the coun- 

 try. It is attached firmly all round the curving twigs by 

 which it is supported ; the stoutest external materials or 

 skeleton of the fabric is formed of interlaced folds of 

 thin strips of red cedar bark, connected very intimately 

 by coarse threads, and small masses of the silk of spiders' 

 nests, and of the cocoons of large moths. These threads 

 are moistened by the glutinous saliva of the bird. Among 

 these external materials are also blended fine blades of 

 dry grass. The inside is thickly bedded with this last 

 material, and fine root fibres, but the finishing layer, as 

 if to preserve elasticity, is of rather coarse grass-stalks. 

 Externally the nest is coated over with green lichen, at- 

 tached very artfully by slender strings of caterpillars' silk, 

 and the whole afterwards tied over by almost invisible 

 threads of the same, so as to appear as if glued on ; and 

 the entire fabric now resembles an accidental knot of 

 the tree grown over with moss. Another nest was fixed 

 on the depending branches of a wild cherry tree, 40 or 

 50 feet from the ground. This was formed of slender 

 bass strips wound crosswise, and held down with cater- 

 pillars' silk. The bottom was also principally floored with 

 large fragments of white paper, the whole scattered over 

 sparingly with bits of lichen and spiders' nests, and very 

 delicately lined with tops of fine bent grass. The eggs, 

 about 4, are white, with a few deep ink-colored spots 

 of two shades, a very little larger than those on the eggs of 



