YELLOW WARBLER 861 



The milkweed and fern wool conspicuous without the 

 rim and about the twigs. I was most struck by that mass 

 of pure pappus under the inside lining. 



Jan. 19, 1856. Gathered some dry water milkweed 

 stems to compare with the materials of the bird's nest 

 of the 18th. The bird used, I am almost certain, the 

 fibres of the bark of the stem, — not the pods, — just 

 beneath the epidermis ; only the bird's is older and more 

 fuzzy and finer, like worn twine or string. The fibres 

 and bark have otherwise the same appearance under the 

 microscope. I stripped off some bark about one sixteenth 

 of an inch wide and six inches long and, separating 

 ten or twelve fibres from the epidermis, rolled it in my 

 fingers, making a thread about the ordinary size. This 

 I could not break by direct pulling, and no man could. 

 I doubt if a thread of flax or hemp of the same size 

 could be made so strong. What an admirable material 

 for the Indian's fish-line ! I can easily get much longer 

 fibres. I hold a piece of the dead weed in my hands, 

 strip off a narrow shred of the bark before my neigh- 

 bor's eyes and separate ten or twelve fibres as fine as a 

 hair, roll them in my fingers, and offer him the thread 

 to try its strength. He is surprised and mortified to find 

 that he cannot break it. Probably both the Indian and 

 the bird discovered for themselves this same (so to call 

 it) wild hemp. The corresponding fibres of the mikania 

 seem not so divisible, become not so fine and fuzzy ; 

 though somewhat similar, are not nearly so strong. I 

 have a hang-bird's nest from the riverside, made almost 

 entirely of this, in narrow shreds or strips with the epi- 

 dermis on, wound round and round the twigs and woven 



