126 .ARCHITECTURE OF THE J]USH-TIT 



from twigs of trees or bushes, but it is not a sioiple cup or 

 basket, open at the top. It resembles the old-fashioned silken 

 purse (which I recall from tradition rather than by actual 

 memory) more than many of the nests called "purse-like" do, 

 the entrance being a circular orifice at the side — nothing but 

 the rings which slipped along these old purses being wanting 

 to render the simile complete. One hardly knows which to 

 admire most — the industry with which such a great feat is 

 executed, or the cunning with which so curious a fabric is 

 wrought — and no one certainly would suspect the owners of 

 the nest to be such pygmies. As Dr. Cooper says, it seems as 

 if it would take a whole flock to get up one such structure. 

 The nest measures in length from six to eight or nine inches, 

 with a diameter of three or three and a half ; the general shape 

 is cylindrical, not perfectly expressed however, for the ends 

 are rounded and the top contracted. The orifice is about an 

 inch in diameter. The substance is closely woven of lichens, 

 mosses, very soft plant-fibre, or cottony vegetable matter, slender 

 spears of grass and fibrous rootlets, and lined with the down- 

 iest, softest possible material, and a great mass of feathers, 

 some of which may appear at the entrance, or be felted in the 

 substance of the walls. The weaving is usually so well executed 

 that the walls appear j^retty firm and smooth from the outside; 

 while their thickness reduces the cavity about one-half. The 

 nest retains the greenish-gray color of the mosses and lichens 

 of which it is principally composed, and the whole affair 

 resembles a natural jjroduct. The reader will find, on Audu- 

 bon's plate already cited, an artistic representation of a nest 

 presented to him by Mr. Nuttall, and as the birds are drawn 

 alongside, in spirited attitudes, the striking disparity ia size is 

 illustrated. In this wonderfully elaborate structure, eggs are 

 deposited to the number of six to nine — an eg^ to every inch of 

 nest; they are pure white, without markings, and measure 

 scarcely or not three-fifths of an inch in lengtb, by less than 

 half an incli in breadth — more exactly, in one instance 0.56 x 

 0.44. Eggsfound by Mr. Xuttall on the Wahlametor AVillamette 

 Elver in Oregon, about the third week in May, were near hatch- 

 ing ; in the south, the bird builds much earlier, Dr. Cooper 

 having observed a nest near San Diego completed by the 1st of 

 March. 



This bird, for aught we know to the contrary, is confined to 

 the Pacific coast region. Dr. Brewer, indeed, quotes Dr. Gam- 



