418 Kennard, Breeding Habits of Rusty Blackbird. [.July 



My friend, William Lyman Underwood, tells me of a nest he 

 found on June 19, 1900, in Penobscot County, Maine, built in 

 the top of an old stump, standing in the water, out from the shore 

 of a lake, and containing three eggs upon which the female was 

 sitting. Owing to the difficulty of photographing the nest and eggs 

 in situ, he had his guides saw off the stump, carry it across the 

 lake, perhaps a quarter of a mile, to a beach where he could set 

 it up and photograph it. They then brought the stump back, and 

 replaced it securely upon its foundation; and the female return- 

 ing, continued her parental duties and raised her young. 



The nests in situ, are in the majority of cases difficult to photo- 

 graph, because in the positions usually chosen, in thick clumps of 

 low evergreens or bushes, the cutting necessary in order to set up 

 one's camera and properly focus, would destroy the natural sur- 

 roundings. 



While, owing to their shyness, I have never been able to catch 

 the birds at nest-building, I have examined a good many deserted 

 nests besides those recorded above, and a careful examination 

 of the nests in my collection shows their method. 



In construction, those that I have seen, have all been partic- 

 ularly well built, rather bulky structures, and practically alike. 

 A foundation is usually laid of usnea moss, sometimes in thick 

 masses, and upon this they build their outside frame-work of twigs, 

 usnea, lichens and occasionally a few dried grasses. In one of the 

 nests in my collection the twigs used were mostly dead hackme- 

 tack, in another spruce, while in the remainder, twigs from decid- 

 uous trees predominated. This framework usually beccmes thick- 

 er and more substantial as it progresses upward. 



Within this outside frame they construct a well modeled hol- 

 low bowl, between five and one-half and six centimeters in depth, 

 and between eight and one-half and nine and one-half centimeters 

 inside diameter. This bowl, which seems to the casual observer 

 to be made of mud, is in reality made of "duff," the rotting vege- 

 table matter with which the ground of this region is covered, and 

 which when dried becomes nearly as hard and stiff as papier 

 mache; and shows their interesting adaptability to conditions, as 

 real mud must at this season be hard to find. A cross-section of 

 the nest shows the bowl to be of varying thickness, but averaging 



