BANG-NESTS. 177 



Sub-Family VI. 

 THE HANG-NESTS. ICTERIN.-E* 



General Characteristics. —Bill more or less lengthened, with both mandibles 

 straight or slightly curved towards the tips, which are acute and entire ; the wings 

 lengthened and pointed ; the tail long and generally wedge-shaped ; the tarsi as 

 long as, or shorter than, the middle toe, and broadly scaled ; toes moderate and 

 formed for grasping. 



These are American birds, in their manners approximating to 

 the starhngs, Hving, hke them, in flocks, and constructing their 

 nests near each other with singular skill and artifice, and suspend- 

 ing them from the horizontal branches of trees. Each nest is 

 about a yard long, and resembles an enormous purse, with the 

 lower end hemispherical and ten inches wide. The male and fe- 

 male jointly manufacture this gigantic structure by interlacing 

 or knitting together shreds of the bark of a species of aloe named 

 caraquata, small rushes, and the fibres of a parasitical plant called 

 Tallandsia usncoidcs, or old mails beard. The bottom is lined 

 with a thick layer of large dry leaves plucked from the tree itself. 

 In this rocking-cradle the female lays three eggs, and feeds her 

 young with worms till they have attained maturity, when they 

 prefer to live on oranges and pine-apples. 



The best-known members of the group are — 



The Cassicanst {Cassicus), so called from the ingenuity with which they 

 construct their pensile nests, crowding them together in such numbers as to 

 form quite a feature in the landscape. Upon one tree, standing in the middle 

 of a lake, and not more than ten feet high, forty-five of these nests have been 

 counted, some depending one from another, and completely concealing all the 

 upper branches except a few of the outermost leaves : at a distance the whole 

 resembled an immense basket. Often in such situations large trees are seen 

 with hundreds of these nests hanging from their boughs and swaying in the 

 wind. " The cassican," says Mr. Waterton, " in size is larger than a starling, 

 and courts the society of man, but disdains to live by his labours. When 

 hungry he repairs to a neighbouring forest, and there partakes of fruit and 

 seeds; when his repast is over he returns to man, and pays the little tribute 

 that he owes him for protection : he takes his station on a tree close to his 

 house, and there for hours together pours forth a succession of imitative notes. 

 His own song is sweet, but very short. If a toucan be yelping in the neigh- 

 bourhood, he drops his own notes and imitates him. Then he will amuse his 

 protector with the cries of the different species of woodpecker ; and when the 



* iKrepos, icteros, a bird, mentioned by Pliny, of a yellowish-green colour. 



t Ka(T(7vo), cassuo, io sew together: so called because they form their nests of interwoven 



vegetable fibres. 



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