NESTING HABITS OF BIRDS. 159 



Many other well-authenticated incidents of a ^imilar 

 nature are recorded. A cat-bird placed its nest on two 

 bushy limbs that grew close together. The weight of the 

 structure spread apart the slender branches, when the 

 birds fastened them together by some fine strips of bark. 



The weaver bird has a most curiously shaped nest, a 

 specimen of which is before me, sent from Calcutta to 

 a member of the " Society of Natural Sciences." It is 

 a well woven elongated pouch, almost water tight, 

 small at the upper end, about a foot and a half in length 

 and composed of strong fibre and grass about the color 

 of a cocoanut. It is a pensile nest, cunningly and 

 securely fastened to a branch above it, and wholly 

 closed at the top. The entrance is a sort of gallery on 

 one side, opening from beneath, and a little below the 

 line with the bottom of the nest. In this orifice, the 

 bird ascends two or three inches and then settles into 

 the nest, being entirely shut out from the world and 

 securely sheltered from sun and storm. Mr. Pohlman 

 saw large numbers of these nests high in trees over- 

 hanging the Paraiba Eiver, South America. 



The summer yellow bird (Dendroica cestiva) surpasses 

 all other birds in its exercise of sagacity in preparing 

 for its offspring. It is well known that the cow bunt- 

 ing often lays its eggs in the nest of this bird, for incu- 

 bation, thus escaping the cares of maternity. To foil 

 this, the cunning little warbler often builds a tall or 

 double-headed nest, and if the bunting deposits her egg 

 first, a wall is built over it, and the bird lays her own 

 eggs ; if the intruder's Qgg is laid after her own, then 



