lOO JVBSTS AND EGGS OF BIRDS. 



below a very small opening, within which a cup-shaped floor- 

 ing has been matted out of the same material. To such a nest 

 you must be guided by the bird itself, for it is eftectuallv con- 

 cealed. The nests are more frequently found, however, hanging 

 from low branches, and when thus pensile are generally imper- 

 fectly circular in shape, with an entrance on one side and rarely 

 with any lining. An exceptional one found by Deane and 

 Brewster at Stoneham. Mass., was in appearance much like 

 that of a Baltimore oriole's, except that it was composed of 

 interwoven moss, being hung in a drooping spray of hemlock, 

 entirely open at the top, and not in the least purse-shaped. 

 The whole structm-e was so frail that the eggs could easily be 

 seen through the walls. Mr. B.J. Peckham of Westerly. R. I ., 

 who appears to have had more than ordinar\ opportunities for 

 studying this bird, gives the following interesting experience : 



In 1S76 I removed a nest tVom a large oak situated on a ledt,fe. In the 

 winter the tree was cut down, and the next spring they used the moss 

 on some low barberry bushes within a few feet of the former tree. The 

 nest when completed hung within three feet of the ground ; but they 

 never used the nest, for they immediately built a second on another 

 barberry bush which grew out of the side of an almost inaccessible 

 ledge. They now for some cause deserted the second nest, and built in 

 a small maple near by. I never found them nearer the ground than 

 eight feet nor in bushes barring these two occasions. The second week 

 in June, 1877, I found two more on an oak surrounded by water, so that 

 had the limbs not overhung a bank, I could not have secured them. 

 One contained four eggs, the other four young so nearly fledged that 

 when I visited it a week later, they had disappeared. The nest was at- 

 tached to a limb three inches thick and hung down about six inches. The 

 external diameter three inches. I would say, among all the nests that 

 I have found not one was placed in the fork, as I have seen stated, but 

 were suspended from the under side of the limb, and braced by attach- 

 ing the long thread-like moss to other branches. One nest was fastened 

 in five different places. Without one exception the nests were all situ- 

 ated over or in close proximity to water. Some nests of this species 

 have a single hole in its side ; others have two — the entrance and a small 

 hole in the rear for their tail to project. 



Seeming already to be mated on their arrival from the south 

 late in May, they immediately begin to search for a proper place 



