340 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



than a man's head, and the whole bunch of some two dozen coconuts, 

 weighing considerably more than a strong man can lift. Among these 

 lower fronds ants establish their colonies, spiders spin their webs, and 

 one expects to encounter, amid all this debris and decaying vegetable 

 matter, scorpions, cockroaches, and other unpleasant creatures. 

 Some trees swarm so with stinging ants that it is unhealthful to climb 

 them. Few of the grackles nested among these lowest fronds. 



Higher, where hang the young and the half-grown fruits, and from 

 this point to the summit, the trunk and the bases of the fronds are 

 enswathed by their sheaths, which soon dry to form a coarse fabric 

 of loosely netted brown fibers, of much the texture and aspect of 

 burlap. These sheaths tear and decay away while the fronds to which 

 they belong remain green, with the result that the oldest are devoid 

 of them. Here, in the axils of the younger fronds, against the coarse 

 fabric of the sheaths, many grackles built their nests, among the 

 white palm flowers covering the stiff upright branches of the spadix, 

 each standing in front of its hooded spathe, fluted on the outer side. 



But the place most favored by the sanates for their nests was in the 

 very center of the palm tree's crown, between the two youngest of the 

 expanded leaves, which stood upright face to face, providing between 

 their broad green surfaces a cozy nook where the structures could be 

 supported. Here the birds were in a verdant realm of their own, 

 whence, through the narrow interstices of the fretwork made by the 

 broad ribbons of the leaflets crossing at varying angles, they caught 

 only imperfect glimpses of the outer world of plain and mountain that 

 spread in a vast panorama about the lofty hilltop. The wind sent 

 ripples along the pleated surfaces of these youngest leaves and tossed 

 the older fronds below, the sun at high noon poured down its rays 

 between the upright young leaves; but affairs on the ground below 

 passed unseen and unregarded. A more attractive site for a bird's 

 nest could scarcely be conceived. The first sanate to build in the 

 coconut palm invariably selected this choice location, and sometimes 

 allowed a friend to place her nest between these same fronds, but on 

 the opposite side of the rachises. If any mishap befell one of these 

 nests and left the position vacant, it was most likely to be occupied 

 again so long as the grackles continued to build. Aside from its 

 sequestered position, the nook between the youngest fronds offered 

 many advantages, not the least of which was its cleanness, for here 

 amid the fresh green leaves the birds were above the ragged sheaths 

 and the vermin they harbored — above everything unclean save the 

 droppings of the roosting grackles themselves. 



It was only after these most favored sites had all been claimed that 

 the sanates were content, perforce, to build among the mature fronds 

 lower down. On the broad bases of the latter they found a firm and 



