160 Wild Birds 



crotch of a tree. It has, I believe, never been shown how this 

 bird makes the wall of its nest so compact and smooth. This 

 pair worked two days at building, during which the character- 

 istic molding movements, which we have seen in the Robins, 

 were repeated in the same mechanical manner, but when the 

 walls were up a peculiar smoothing process was applied to the 

 outside. Standing within the nest and leaning over its brim, 

 this bird would "iron" the outside with her head. Bending 

 down, she drew alternately the left and right side of the head 

 and neck over the outside, in one continuous movement, as you 

 would strop a razor. The little bird practices this "ironing" 

 process frequently, turning about until every part of the outer sur- 

 face has been reached. While thus engaged you would hear only 

 an occasional chick-chick! When the walls were up, the smooth- 

 ing movements were repeated at each visit, whether any material 

 was added or not, after which the bird would sometimes settle 

 down, turn, and shake like a Robin. Once while engaged with 

 the lining, and a feather accidentally stuck in the mouth of the 

 worker and refused to move, the bird flew to a branch and 

 energetically rubbed its bill until relieved. In gathering the 

 nest material, a regular course of action was generally adopted. 

 Coming first to a bean-pole, at least one of them probably the 

 male would call in his incisive way chebec ! chebec I look about 

 cautiously, drop to the ground, select something, and fly by easy 

 stages from tree to tree to the nest-site two rods away. The 

 streamers being difficult to manage often caught on branches 

 or dropped to the grass, so that a regular trail was eventually 

 established, leading up to the very nest itself. 



This nest was placed high in an apple tree, and when finished 

 was almost wholly composed of white yarn, cotton cloth, and 

 the hens' feathers, which I had supplied to the birds. They 

 were compacted as well as their nature would admit, but all 

 about the nest and hanging from every part of it were streamers 

 of white cloth from one to two feet long, making it in all prob- 

 ability the most conspicuous if not the most curious piece of 

 nest-building ever executed by these birds. Since there was 

 three times as much material as was needed, and most of this 



