156 SINGING BIRDS. 



instant, sitting in the same range, thinks the exercise of the gun 

 must be credited only by the havoc which it produces against 

 a friendly, useful, and innocent visitor. 



Towards the close of May or beginning of June the Cherry 

 Birds, now paired, commence forming the cradle of their young ; 

 yet still so sociable are they that several nests may be observed 

 in the same vicinity. The materials and trees chosen for their 

 labors are various, as well as the general markings of their eggs. 

 Two nests, in the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, were formed 

 in small hemlock- trees, at the distance of i6 or i8 feet from 

 the ground, in the forks of the main branches. One of these 

 was composed of dry, coarse grass, interwoven roughly with a 

 considerable quantity of dead hemlock sprigs, further con- 

 nected by a small quantity of silk-weed lint, and lined with 

 a few strips of thin grape-vine bark, and dry leaves of the 

 silver fir. In the second nest the lining was merely fine root- 

 fibres. On the 4th of June this nest contained 2 eggs, — the 

 whole number is generally about 4 or 5 ; these are of the usual 

 form (not remarkable for any disproportion of the two ends), of 

 a pale clay white, inclining to olive, with a few well-defined 

 black or deep umber spots at the great end, and with others 

 seen, as it were, beneath the surface of the shell. Two or 

 three other nests were made in the apple-trees of an adjoining 

 orchard, one in a place of difficult access, the other on a de- 

 pending branch easily reached by the hand. These were 

 securely fixed horizontally among the ascending twigs, and were 

 formed externally of a mass of dry, wiry weeds, the materials 

 being firmly held together by a large quantity of cudweed 

 down, in some places softened with glutinous saliva so as to 

 be formed into coarse, connecting shreds. The round edge of 

 the nest was made of coils of the wiry stolons of a common 

 Cinquefoil then lined with exceedingly fine root-fibres ; over 

 the whole, to give elasticity, were laid fine stalks of a slender 

 juncus, or minute rush. In these nests the eggs were, as de- 

 scribed by Wilson (except as to form), marked with smaller 

 and more numerous spots than the preceding. From the late- 

 ness of the autumn, at which period incubation is still going 



