BIRDS'-NESTS 117 



bird structure. A peculiar flax-like substance seems 

 to be always sought after and always found. The 

 nest when completed assumes the form of a large, 

 suspended gourd. The walls are thin but firm, 

 and proof against the most driving rain. The 

 mouth is hemmed or overhanded with horse-hair, 

 and the sides are usually sewed through and through 

 with the same. 



Not particular as to the matter of secrecy, the 

 bird is not particular as to material, so that it be of 

 the nature of strings or threads. A lady friend 

 once told me that, while working by an open win- 

 dow, one of these birds approached during her 

 momentary absence, and, seizing a skein of some 

 kind of thread or yarn, made off with it to its half- 

 finished nest. But the perverse yarn caught fast 

 in the branches, and, in the bird's effort to extri- 

 cate it, got hopelessly tangled. She tugged away 

 at it all day, but was finally obliged to content her- 

 self with a few detached portions. The fluttering 

 strings were an eyesore to her ever after, and, pass- 

 ing and repassing, she would give them a spiteful 

 jerk, as much as to say, "There is that confounded 

 yarn that gave me so much trouble." 



From Pennsylvania, Vincent Barnard (to whom 

 I am indebted for other curious facts) sent me this 

 interesting story of an oriole. He says a friend of 

 his curious in such things, on observing the bird 

 beginning to build, hung out near the prospective 

 nest skeins of many-colored zephyr yarn, which the 

 eager artist readily appropriated. He managed it 



