302 



THE OOLOGIST. 



eyed Vireo, Maryland Yellow-throat 

 and others, the materials of the nest 

 will often indicate as before sta ed the 

 kind of place from which it came. But 

 though in the foregoing birds the ma- 

 terials often vary accoi-ding to locality, 

 some birds will Ivcep strictly to one or 

 more materials which they seem to 

 think necessary, alwaj's putting them 

 in even though the otlier materials vary 

 • considerably. The Yellow Warbler has 

 such preference, in tliis locality for tire 

 buff-colored wool found on the unfold- 

 ing ponds of the Marsh spleenwort {As- 

 plenium thelypteroides) and out of fif- 

 teen nests examined only four lacked 

 this mate 'ial, and in one case, at least 

 the bird must have gone half a mile for 

 it. Nests of the Yellow-throated Vireo, 

 always, so far as my experience has 

 shown, have more or less of the green 

 lichens which grow on the bark of trees? 

 or on old fences, on the outside of them, 

 and sometimes the whole outside of the 

 nest is covered, and at other times only 

 a part of it. The bird's method of pro- 

 curring these lichens is as follows: 

 Having selected a suitable piece the 

 builder will seize it in her bill and then 

 make as if to tly off with it, liut as it 

 holds onto the bark rather hard, all she 

 can do is to hang on to it with her bill 

 and flutter and pull till at last it comes 

 off, when it is carried to the nest and 

 bound on with caterpillar silk. The 

 Catbirds in this locality stick tenacious- 

 ly to certain materials for their nests, 

 namely between the outer part of the 

 nest and the lining I tind a layer of 

 large bark strips, and in all but two out 

 of twenty-eight cases, the lining is en- 

 tirely of tine black rootlets. These two 

 had a small quantity of horse hair 

 mixed in with the rootlets which was 

 probably jirocurred in the pasture 

 where the nests and also several horses 

 were. 



The nest of a bird will often show the 

 builder's ingenuity in overcoming some 

 difficulty, as in the case of an Oriole's 



nest, where a string was woven into the 

 nest at one side, and then carried up to a 

 higher twig thus keeping it from closing 

 up, as it would otherwise have done, so 

 that the parent bird could not get in. 

 The nests of the Red-winged Blackbirds, 

 whether built in the I'eeds, or the 

 bushes, in a marsh, in this locality, al- 

 ways have a thick layer of rushes or 

 mud between the lining and the outer 

 part of the structure. The pui'pose of 

 this layer of mud or rushes, is not evi- 

 dent except in those nests built in the 

 long grass, and in those thus j)laced, 

 being only a couple of inches or .so 

 from the water, these outer materials 

 and the layer of rushes or mud is soaked 

 through, but the water never gets be- 

 yond this layer, which keeps the lining 

 and the eggs perfectly dry. This fact 

 leads me to ask this question: Why do 

 the Robins, Wood Thrush and Purple 

 Grackles always put a layer of mud be- 

 tween the lining and outer materials of 

 their nests? It is evident that the Barn 

 Swallow and the Phoebe use it to secure 

 their nests to the beam or bridge res- 

 pectively, but in the case of the birds 

 before mentioned, I can see no need of 

 it though it is always present. It might 

 be barely possible that the three species 

 may have, at some t ime, many 3"ears 

 ago. nested on the ground in wet places 

 and thus learned to use the mud layer, 

 but for some reason changed their nest- 

 ing places to trees and bushes, as the 

 Red-winged Blackbird of ten is seen to 

 do now, but if any of the readers of this 

 should have another opinion on the sub- 

 ject, I would consider it a favor if they 

 would let me know what they think. 



While in New Hamisphere this sum- 

 mer, I found a large colony of between 

 three and four hundred Bank Swallows 

 nesting in a high sandbank by the Con- 

 necticut river. One day, while there, a 

 very heavy rain came up, and after it 

 had cleared off I went down to the 

 bank, and instead of tintliug that the 

 burrows had been injured, I was sur- 



