681 bullock's oriole. 



before iis. Each is ditferently constructed ; and while all three 

 evince wonderful powers of weaving, one of them in [)articular is 

 astonishing!}^ ingenious, displaying the united accomplishments of 

 weaving and basket making. Before proceeding, we may premise 

 that the idea of the nest is a sort of bag or purse, closely woven 

 of slender pliant substances like strips of fibrous bark, grasses, 

 hair, twine, etc., open at the top, and hung by its rim in the fork 

 of a twig or at the very end of a floating spray. 



The first nest was built in a pine tree ; and if the reader will 

 call to mind the stiif nature of the terminal branchlets, each bear- 

 ing a thick bunch of long straight needle-like leaves, he will see 

 that the birds must have been put to their wits' end, though very 

 likely he will not be able to guess how they made shift with such 

 unpromising materials. They made up their minds to use the 

 leaves themselves in the nest, and with this idea they commenced 

 by bending down a dozen or twenty of the stiff slender filaments, 

 and tying their ends together at the l)ottom. If you have ever 

 seen a l)asket maker at work, with his upright pieces already' in 

 place, but not yet fixed together with the circular ones, you will 

 understand exactly what the birds had thus accomplished. They 

 had a secure framework of nearly parallel and upright leaves nat- 

 urally attached to the bough above, and tied together below b^^- 

 the bird's art. This skeleton of the nest was about nine inches 

 long, and four across the top, running to a point below ; and the 

 subsequent weaving of the nest upon this basis was an easy mat- 

 ter to the birds, though, if one were to examine a piece of the 

 fabric cut away from the nest, he could hardly believe that the thin 

 yet tough and strong felting had not been made by some shoddy 

 contractor for the supply of army clothing. Yet it was all de- 

 signed in a bird's little brain, and executed with skilful bill and 

 feet. 



Perliaps the young birds that were raised in the second nest did 

 not ai)preciate their romantic surroundings, but their parents were 

 evidently a sentimental pair. If they did not do their courting 

 ^' under the mistletoe," at any rate they built a cozy home there, 

 tinting the sober reality of married life with the rosy hue of their 

 earlier dreams. The nest was hung in a bunch of the Arceutho- 

 hlnia oxycedri, an abundant epiphytic plant that on the western 

 wilds represents the mistletoe, and recalls the cherished memories 

 of holiday gatherings. The nest was a cylindrical purse some 



