THE BALTIMORE STARLING. vid 
hung on the extremity of the horizontal branch of 
an apple-tree, fronting the southeast, was visible 
one hundred yards off, though shaded by the sun, and 
was the work of a very beautiful and perfect bird. 
The eggs are five, white, slightly tinged with flesh- 
colour, marked on the greater end with purple dots, 
and on the other parts with long hairlike lines, in- 
tersecting each other in a variety of directions. I 
am thus minute in these particulars from a wish to 
point out the specific difference between the true and 
bastard Baltimore, which Dr. Latham and some 
others suspect to be only the same bird in different 
stages of colour. 
** So solicitous is the Baltimore to procure proper 
materials for his nest, that, in the season of building, 
the women in the country are under the necessity 
of narrowly watching their thread that may chance to 
be bleaching, and the farmer to secure his young 
grafts, as the Baltimore, finding the former, and the 
strings which tie the latter, so well adapted for his 
purpose, frequently carries off both; or should the 
one be too heavy and the other too firmly tied, he 
will tug at them a considerable time before he gives 
up the attempt. Skeins of silk and hanks of thread 
have been often found, after the leaves were fallen, 
hanging round the Baltimore’s nest, but so woven up 
and entangled as to be entirely irreclaimable. Be- 
fore the introduction of Europeans no such material 
could have been obtained here; but, with the saga- 
city of a good architect, he has improved this cir- 
cumstance to his advantage, and the strongest and 
best materials are uniformly found in those parts by 
which the whole is supported.”* 
One of the prettiest of the woven nests is figured 
and described by Vaillant in his splendid work on 
African birds, though he is doubtful what species of 
bird was the mechanic. The following is his ac- 
count of this beautiful nest. 
* Wilson, pres Ornith., i., 26. 
