56 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
of a barn or on a telegraph wire, where they look 
like rows of little mutes. It is funny enough to 
see them light on a wire. Fluttering over it for 
a moment before settling down, they sway back 
and forth till you are sure they must fall off. 
The roads afford them much occupation. When 
not making statistics about the passers-by, or col- 
lecting mud for their nests, they take dust baths 
in the road. They usually build inside barns or 
covered bridges, lining their nests with feathers, 
but a case is recorded of a nest under the eaves of 
a house, which was made entirely of “ rootlets and 
grass,” though thickly lined with downy chicken 
feathers. Mr. Burroughs tells of a barn nest 
“saddled in the loop of a rope that was pendant 
from a peg in the peak.” 
a 
