material easily accessible in the region 

 of the nest, ot dry leaves for a founda- 

 tion upon which plant stems, dry grass, 

 grape-vine bark, or like material is ar- 

 ranged, and the whole lined with fine 

 rootlets. The material will vary some- 

 what with locality and situation of the 

 nest, as a matter of course. Rarely 

 the nest may be covered, with the en- 

 trance in the side, but it is usually not 

 covered. The nest site is preferably 

 some distance from a road or foot- 

 path, often in moderately deep woods 

 where there is little underbrush, but 

 more often in the shrubbery fringing 

 the woods, either on a hill-top or side 

 hill or bottom land. Here at Oberlin, 

 Ohio, I have foind more nests in the 

 low second growth near swampy places 

 than elsewhere. 



The nest complement is from three 

 to five eggs, usually four. The egg 

 seems to be a rather rounded ovate, 

 running to nearly spherical on the one 



hand to elongate oval on the other. 

 The ground color is whijic, not seldom 

 tinged with pink or blue, with sprink- 

 ling of reddish-brown dots, spots, and 

 blotches. It is a common experience 

 to find eggs of the parasitic cowbird 

 in nests of towhee. Twice I have 

 found nests on which the mother tow- 

 hee was serenely sitting with four eggs 

 of the cowbird beneath her and none 

 of her own. Two eggs of the cowbird 

 and two or three of the towhee in a 

 nest are common. Sometimes the 

 parasitic eggs so closely resemble 

 those of the parent that it is not easy 

 to distinguish between them, but often 

 the difference is very marked. 



The towhee is a fairly common in- 

 habitant of the whole region east of 

 the Rocky Mountains and north to the 

 northern border of the United States, 

 breeding everywhere north of northern 

 Alabama. 



WEE BABIES. 



ELLA F. MOSBY. 



THE past summer I saw the most 

 charming baby-bird of my life. 

 He was so tiny and silvery, his 

 upper feathers -such a lovely 

 olive-green and the under plumage such 

 soft white, and over the bright, innocent 

 little eyes a beautiful curving line like 

 an eyebrow. I did not at first recog- 

 nize him, but the next day I saw two, 

 probably of the same flock, hunting 

 very industriously over an old tree, and 

 I knew they were the young red eyed 

 vireos. Their feathers were all new and 

 fresh, and that made them Jook so sil- 

 very and the tints seem so clear. 



The same summer I became very well 

 acquainted with a different set of bird- 

 babies. They were still younger, for 

 their feathers had a soft, downy look, 

 and fluffed out so that they really 

 looked larger than their tiny parents. 

 They were silver gray, the little blue- 

 gray gnat catchers, and nothing could 

 be more charming than the way they 

 twinkled about the bushes, or turned 

 somersaults in the air to catch flying 

 insects on the wing. Their little songs, 



as low as whispers, their call-notes "like 

 a banjo-string"////^.^ and even their low 

 scoldings, were very pretty, and seemed 

 to belong to them perfectly. Someone, 

 who did not know birds very well 

 called them lit Je wrens, and they really 

 had a good many of the restless move- 

 ments and alert attitudes of these birds, 

 but their habits are totally different. 

 For instance, their life begins in a lich- 

 ened cup high up among the top boughs 

 and it is only in the late summer, when 

 birds break their rules and go as they 

 please for a brief holiday time before 

 the migration, that you will see the 

 gnat-catchers come down to the low 

 bushes. I can hardly believe it myself, 

 but I once saw a young one picking 

 away on the ground. 



One charm about the tiny birds, 

 gnat- catchers, chebecks, vireos, kinglets, 

 and the like, is that they are not usually 

 so shy as large, handsome birds, and I 

 have often had them almost within 

 touch, singing, feeding, preening their 

 feathers, in the loveliest and most con- 

 fiding way. 



