THE ALLIES OF THE PIGEON: AVES 389 



Vireos are small, greenish-colored birds, which build cup- 

 shaped, hanging nests of plant-fibers, lined with pine-needles 

 and similar material. The white-eyed vireo has the habit of 

 often weaving a piece of newspaper into the structure of its 

 nest ; hence it is called " the politician " in some parts of the 

 country. A cast snake's skin is also a favorite object for this 

 purpose. 



Our familiar crow and our almost equally familiar blue jay 

 are members of the family Cor'vidce. The family is considered 

 by ornithologists to be unusually intelligent, and by some is 

 even considered the highest bird-group. Closely allied to the 

 crows and jays are the blackbirds and orioles (Icter'idce). In 

 this family is the cowbird, which has the habit of laying its 

 eggs in the nests of other birds, which are usually smaller 

 than itself, and of leaving the egg to be hatched by its foster- 

 parent. A South American cowbird lays its eggs in the nest 

 of another species of cowbird, which does not possess this 

 parasitic habit fully developed, since it sometimes builds its 

 own nest and sometimes lays its eggs in the nests of other 

 birds. The orioles are remarkable for their elaborately inter- 

 woven hanging nests, much deeper than the somewhat similar 

 hanging nests of the vireos. 



The finches and sparrows (Fringil'lidoe) are the largest 

 family of birds. However varied the members of this group 

 are in form and color, they agree, usually, in the possession 

 of a stout, conical bill, adapted to crushing seeds. The 

 European house-sparrow, often called the English sparrow 

 (Pas'ser domes'ticus), is probably well known to dwellers in 

 nearly every town and city in the United States. Intro- 

 duced from Europe into this country in the neighborhood of 

 Brooklyn, in 1851 and 1852, the house-sparrow has since 

 spread so widely that it may now be said that its conquest 

 of the centers of population in our country is almost com- 

 plete. It has made itself at home in our city streets, and 



