228 FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING. 



of the elms along the street or in the grove, and is com- 

 pleted by June 10. The nest is never found in the deep 

 woods. Its maker is a bird of the sunlight, and is sociable 

 with man. The haunts of the orioles are those grand trees 

 which the farmer leaves here and there in his field as shade 

 for his cattle, to lean over the brier-tangled fence of the 

 lane, or droop toward the dancing waters of some rural riv- 

 er. " There is," says Thomas Nuttall, " nothing more re- 

 markable in the whole instinct of our golden-robin than 

 the ingenuity displayed in the fabrication of its nest, which 

 is, in fact, a pendulous, cylindric pouch of five to seven 

 inches in depth, usually suspended from near the extremi- 

 ties of the high drooping branches of trees (such as the 

 elm, the pear, or apple tree, wild -cherry, weeping-willow, 

 tulip-tree, or button-wood)." 



These words might in a general way apply to all the 

 Icteri, most of which inhabit North or South America, have 

 brilliant plumages, and build nests of matchless workman- 

 ship, woven and entwined in such a way as would defy the 

 skill of the most expert seamstress, and unite dryness, safe- 

 ty, and warmth. They are mostly pendulous from the ends 

 of branches, and form thus a security from snakes and oth- 

 er robbers, which could easily reach them if placed on a 

 more solid foundation. They are formed of the different 



