48 



dwelling houses. The Lombardy poplar and the locust do no 

 better than in New England, and are scarcely worth the ground 

 which they occupy. I would like to see the experiment tried of 

 importing our maple into this region. The silver poplar is occa- 

 sionally seen, and seems to thrive, and I know no reason why 

 the maple might not. 



The nests of several orchard birds give a peculiar aspect to 

 the house surroundings here. Among these is the ** Hornero," 

 the '* Baker" or " Oven-bird," somewhat smaller than our robin, 

 and so called because it builds a curious, round, oven-like habita- 

 tion of mud which, after the fashion of our barn swallow, it 

 plasters over the tops of posts, stumps, the ends of broken limbs, 

 and even on the sides of houses. I knocked off one of these 

 ovens and found it to be roofed over, with the entrance at the 

 side, the walls an inch in thickness, and the whole weighing not 

 less than eight or ten pounds. It indicates a great deal of indus- 

 try and perseverance on the part of this little creature to be able 

 to carry so much mud in its bill, and no litde ingenuity to con- 

 struct a nest which is as round and even as though it were 

 smoothed by the trowel of a mason. On some of the peach 

 trees, scarcely higher than a man's head there were other nests 

 which at first view looked like baskets of twigs. One of these, 

 the work of a bird smaller than the Hornero and known as '' El 

 Lenateros/* or " Twig-gatherer," is as large as a peck basket, 

 made of small twigs, the ends of which are very ingeniously 

 twisted and hooked together. I thought when I first caught a 

 glimpse of this nest, that it must be the home of an eagle at 

 least, and wondered how it came to be placed in the crotch of a 

 small tree, where it looked as much out of place as a marten 

 house would if placed upon a huckleberry bush. When closely 

 examined it proved to be a regular twig hut, the real nest being 

 a small cavity in the interior, the entrance to which is on the side. 

 Frail as the structure looks, yet it can withstand the pamperos, 

 the violent winds which frequently blow from the southeast 

 across the pampas, and cling fast even while the slender tree is 

 bent almost to the ground. 



Around the gardens were old hedges of the Indian fi^r cactus 



Me 



