THE BONANA STARLING. 81 
als, is made much deeper and of slighter texture. 
The circumference is marked out by a number of 
these pensile twigs, that descend on each side like 
ribs, supporting the whole, their thick foliage at 
the same time completely concealing the nest from 
view. The depth in this case is increased to four 
or five inches, and the whole is made much slight- 
er. These long pendant branches, being sometimes 
twelve and even fifteen feet in length, have a large 
sweep in the wind, and render the first of these pre- 
cautions necessary to prevent the eggs or young 
from being thrown out; and the close shelter afford- 
ed by the remarkable thickness of the foliage is no 
doubt the cause of the latter. Two of these nests, 
such as I have here described, are now lying before 
me, and exhibit not only art in the construction, but 
judgment in adapting their fabrication so judiciously 
to their particular situations. If the actions of birds 
proceeded, as some would have us believe, from the 
mere impulses of that thing called instinct, individ- 
uals of the same species would uniformly build their 
nest in the same manner, wherever they might hap- 
pen to fix it; but it is evident from these just men- 
tioned, and a thousand such circumstances, that they 
reason, d priori, from cause to consequences, provi- 
dently managing with a constant eye to future ne- 
cessity and convenience.’* 
According to Buffon and Latham, the bonana star- 
ling (Icterus bonana) is another of the tailors. It in- 
habits Martinico, Jamaica, and other West India isl- 
ands, and builds a nest of a very curious construc- 
tion, if it can justly be called building. The mate- 
rials which it uses are fibres and leaves, which it 
shapes into the fourth part of a globe, and sews the 
whole with great art to the under part of a bonana 
leaf, so that the leaf makes one side of the nest.t 
But the most celebrated bird of this division is 
* Wilson, Amer. Ornith., v., 50. 
} Latham, General Hist. of Birds, iii., 118. 
