BIRDS'-NESTS 117 



bird structure. A peculiar flax-like substance seems 

 to be always sought after and always found. The 

 nest when completed assumes the form of a large, 

 suspended gourd. The walls are thin but firm, 

 and proof against the most driving rain. The 

 mouth is hemmed or overhanded with horse-hair, 

 and the sides are usually sewed through and through 

 ■with the same. 



Not particular as to the matter of secrecy, the 

 bird is not particular as to material, so that it be of 

 the nature of strings or threads. A lady friend 

 once told me that, while working by an open win- 

 dow, one of these birds approached during her 

 momentary absence, and, seizing a skein of some 

 kind of thread or yarn, made off with it to its half- 

 finished nest. But the perverse yarn caught fast 

 in the branches, and, in the bird's effort to extri- 

 cate it, got hopelessly tangled. She tugged away 

 at it all day, but was finally obliged to content her- 

 self with a few detached portions. The fluttering 

 strings were an eyesore to her ever after, and, pass- 

 ing and repassing, she would give them a spiteful 

 jerk, as much as to say, "There is that confounded 

 yarn that gave me so much trouble." 



From Pennsylvania, Vincent Barnard (to whom 

 I am indebted for other curious facts) sent me this 

 interesting story of an oriole. He says a friend of 

 his curious in such things, on observing the bird 

 beginning to build, hung out near the prospective 

 nest skeins of many-colored zephyr yarn, which the 

 eager artist readily appropriated. He managed it 



