A MIDSUMMER PRINCE. 233 



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glances, leaving only a little door in the side. Both of 

 these things the hang- nest actually does. I myself have 

 seen a nest of his making, over the open top of which a 

 broad leaf had been bent down and tied by glutinous 

 threads in such a way as to make a good portico. Mr. 

 Thomas Gentry found a much more complete example at 

 Germantown (Philadelphia), Pennsylvania, where the ori- 

 oles " were constrained to erect a permanent roof to their 

 dwelling by interwoven strings through their deprivation 

 of the verdant and agreeable canopy which the leaves would 



naturally afford So nicely is the roof adjusted that 



even the most critical investigation cannot discern the 

 union. The entrance is a circular opening situated in the 

 superior third of the nest, facing southwardly." Mr. Gen- 

 try considers this the latest improvement upon a nest which 

 in the beginning was simply a hammock in the fork of a 

 tree, like a vireo's, but which has been made more and 

 more pendulous, until what was at first the whole nest is 

 now only the lining at the bottom of a deep enclosing bag. 

 With the idea of testing Wallace's theory that birds of 

 bright colors, easily detected by birds of prey, are always 

 found to occupy concealing nests, Dr. C. C. Abbott, of 

 Trenton, New Jersey, made extensive notes upon the nests 

 of our subject. In every instance those nests which fully 



