30 



JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



A Day at Cumberland Centre. 



It was my privilege to spend Friday, 

 July 28tb, with Mr. Waller E. Blaii- 

 chard iu exploring sonie interesting 

 localities near the village of Cumberland 

 Centre, in company also with Mr. 

 Sweetser, an enthusiastic botnnist. 



Two or three objects of great interest 

 to us may be worthy of notice in our 

 bulletin. 



Mr. Blancliard showed us at his home 

 two nests that were very wondeifully 

 constructed for concealment and then 

 took us to the very places from which 

 he had taken them. The first was a 

 humming-bird's nest wliich had been 

 placed far out on the spreading limb of 

 a maple tree, whei'e the limb divided in 

 a V-shaped branch, and was so cunning- 

 ly shaped into a lichen-covered knot 

 that only the most careful watching of 

 the bird revealed its position. The 

 branch was scarcely more than an inch 

 in diameter, and the nest, a little lai'ger 

 than an English walnut, was lined with 

 a tawny cottony down taken appai-ently 

 from the stems of ferns, but the outside 

 was so covered with lichens, like those 

 near it on the branch, as to make it 

 appear like a veritable piece of the tree 

 itself. We were taken to the unfre- 

 quented ravine-like valley where the 

 tree was and shown, twenty-five feet or 

 more from the ground, the very branch 

 from which the part hokling the nest 

 had been taken. 



Another uest, one of the northei'u 

 parula warbler, was if possible, still 

 more marvelously constructed and con- 

 cealed. It was on a dead fir tree, placed 

 in a little hammock or loop of the long 

 moss with which the tree was diaped, 

 in such a way that there was absolutely 



no outward, visible indication in which 

 particular part of the mossy shroud the 

 nest was placed. The nest was com- 

 l)k'tely hidden in the moss, a hanging- 

 cradle with precious fieight of life and 

 hopes, and was discovered, as the other, 

 only by patient watching of tlie move- 

 ments of the bird iu its appi-oaches to 

 the tree. 



Two other nests seen were perhaps as 

 interesting as these but for a different 

 reason. It is well known that the 

 ph(ebe bird or bridge pewee builds its 

 uest on the tiiiibers of bridges over 

 running water, though I have known at 

 least one case in which the nest was 

 placed in a shed near a dwelling. 

 Where did thi y build before bridges 

 wei'e constructed for their convenience? 

 The chimney swift made its little 

 bracket-like homes in hollow tiees, but 

 who can tell where the bridge pewee 

 reared its young? The position of two 

 nests which we visited may help to ans- 

 wer this question. In a rocky ravine, a 

 part of the bed of a disused mill-pond, 

 the cliff overhung the nairow stream at 

 an angle of 45 degrees, and heie in the 

 letired valley, on little brackets or 

 shelves of rock, over the running water, 

 in an ideal ijosition for comfort and 

 safety, the two nests weie placed. 1 he 

 rocks were gneiss-like in structure ; the 

 semi-cavern had doubtless lieeii cntinio 

 them hy the elements, water, heat, cold, 

 and thus was fashioned the home from 

 which these two families had safely 

 taken their flight. 'I he nests, now 

 empty, were fi\ e or six feet above the 

 water and ten or twelve feet apart. It 

 was doubtless in similar positions that 

 the nests of these birds were placed be- 

 fore civilized men had built for them the 

 more commonly used bridges. If so, 



