92 OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS. 
the leaf is kept from doubling quite up and is like a 
sharp roof over the heads of the young and their mother. 
The banana leaf is constantly waving and trembling, 
even when there is scarcely a bit of breeze. 
Another favorite place for an oriole to build her 
hammock is the under side of the fan-palm leaf. You 
will wonder how a bird can weave a thread in and out 
of a leaf, when she has no fingers or needles. We have 
watched an oriole do this many a time, and this is how 
it is done. She takes a thread in her beak and pushes 
it through the leaf from one side. Then she flies to 
the other side and pushes the same thread back through 
another opening in the leaf which she has made with 
her bill. ‘Thus she weaves a kind of cloth pouch on 
the under side of the leaf, flying back and forth from 
the upper to the under side. The pouch or hammock 
is lined, and there the eggs are laid. You can see the 
mother’s head sticking out from the nest, but if she 
knows you are watching, she will draw her head out of 
sight, so you will see nothing but the nest. 
The thread most used by orioles here is the fibre 
which ravels from the edges of the palm leaves. Where 
such thread is not to be had, they use twine or string 
of any sort. 
Young orioles meet with many dangers before they 
leave the hammock. Sometimes their feet get tangled 
in the thread or horsehairs of which the nest is partly 
made. When the little helpless things attempt to fly 
out, they are sometimes caught by the toes, and there 
