lb .Built'/ in No. 2j. 



such a hurry he lost his balance and hung by his strong feet, holding his 

 "chin" above the limb, but still unable to pull up his fat little body. I 

 put him, struggling, back into the nest where he with apparent astonish- 

 ment stared at me as I descended. This is the first time I have ever 

 found these birds nesting close together, but according to the books they 

 do occasionally nest in small colonies. It was several days before I h;id 

 an opportunity to visit them again, but when I did so, I found them still 

 mostly covered with down but already several feet away from the nest, 

 hiding in the grape vines which covered the tops of the trees. After I 

 was sui'e they had no further use for the nests I took both home for 

 examination. The dimensions in inches are as follows: (Where two 

 dimensions are given under a single heading the maximum and minimum 

 are meant.) 



The first nest, which was in a plum tree, eight feet from the ground 

 on a horizontal limb at the base of two nearly opposite branches, con- 

 tained the following: — 199 pieces of Plum [Pr/ifi-its amei-hitfia) sticks 

 measuring 108 feet; 43 of Willow [Salix sp':" ) 24 feet. 23 of Box Elder 

 {Acer }ifg-iuid()) 12 feet; i of cherry {/'rnmis serofi/ia) 7 inches; 

 and I of Great Ragweed (Amb)-osia trijida) 5 inches. The largest piece 

 in the nest was of Willow, 21 inches. The total number of pieces was 

 267 and the total length 145 feet. The second nest, which was in a 

 crab-apple tree thirteen feet from the ground, was built on a similar 

 branch and contained: — 206 pieces of Crab [Pyriis iocusis) sticks meas- 

 uring 108 feet; 16 of Willow, wy^ feet; 3 of Haw [Crala\iiiis pn?n-/a/a) 

 2 feet; 10 of Box Elder, 8>< feet; 6 of Plum, 4 feet; 2 of Osage Orange 

 {Toxylon fo7i2iferum) 2 feet; 14 of Grape {Mlia -c'ulphia) 12 feet; and 8. 

 of Waahoo [Euoinnnus atropio-piu-cus) roots, 9 feet. The longest piece 

 in the nest was of Waahoo root, two and one-half feet. The total number 

 of pieces was 265 and the total length 157 feet. This gives us the rather 

 novel result of a; difference of only two in the number of pieces, and but 

 twelve feet more material in one nest than the other; also, though the 

 nests were but twenty-six feet apart, one was in a plum tree in a thicket 

 of the same and contained almost three times as many plum twigs as all 

 other material put together. The second nest, built in a crab-apple tree 

 in a thicket of crabs mixed with some other trees, contained the same 



