The Mourning Dove cradles its young on the bare ground or on a rough 

 |jlatforni of sticks in a bush. Eggs 2, inirc white, though Mr. P. \V. .^mith of 

 Greenville, 111., records sets of three and four. 



The Cuckoo makes a nest but little better than the Mourning Dove's. Eggs 

 3-4, almost green, said sometimes to Ik- laid several days apart so that there are 

 young in various stages of development. 



The beautiful, noisy Golden-winged Woodpecker, or Flicker, pecks a home 

 in a dead tree or post, meantime uttering notes "like the whetting of a scythe." 

 Eggs 6-10, white. There is a record of a female, robbed of one eacii day, that 

 laid 37, resting fourteen days in the meantime; and of another laying 71 in 77) 

 days. 



The Meadow Lark's nest is a great satisfaction because you always know 

 just where to find it — ajtcr you have found it. It is always on the ground, always 

 in deep grass, always under a tussock of grass, always with a cute little path 

 no longer than the owner's body, in front of the door. It may be very near to 

 your house. One pair last summer raised a brood of four between two city 

 houses ; another, within five feet of a sidewalk where people and dogs were con- 

 tinually passing; still another pair in an isolated meadow deserted their pretty 

 nest with six beautiful white eggs, and there it remained, undisturbed, for sev- 

 eral weeks. 



The Quail lays 10-20 white eggs so pointed that they roll in a circle and 

 cannot be blown out of the slight depression. 



The only nest of a Goldfinch we have ever seen to know it, was placed 

 five feet high in the branches of a tall Canada thistle. Four bluish-white eggs 

 had hatched, but one bird died and dried in the nest. The others took wing on 

 September 21st. 



You may look for colonies of Red-winged Blackbirds' nests in swampy 

 places and as low as 18 inches from the ground. There will usually be 4 bluish- 

 white eggs with black hieroglyphs at the larger end. Sometimes the nests are in 

 bushes near the water ; but you can always tell when you are nearing them by 

 the way the old ones fly and cry high overhead. 



You will look in vain for the Cowbird's nest for he has none. The female 

 spies upon the homemaking of other birds and deposits 1, 2. or 3 white, choco- 

 late-spotted eggs in the other's nest where they are reared to the death or 

 detriment of the foster mother's young. It is strange that a bird can be thus im- 

 posed upon. The Yellow Warbler refuses to incubate the alien t^'g and builds 

 another nest on top of the first even when, by doing so, she has to shut out one or 

 more of her own eggs. A two-story nest of this kind is in the Western Normal, 

 and there is a four-story one in the Field Museum of Chicago. 



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