2io What Birds Have Done With Me 



timore Oriole's nest; a woven bottle, hitched to 

 the tip-top branch of a tall tree, where it was 

 swung by the winds as no boat was ever rocked 

 by the waves. But it was all true, plus the 

 witchery of always finding it complete and never 

 in process of construction. I think I was most 

 shocked and sorry for a little warbler, who, so 

 to speak, always has to carry its nest with it 

 and that nest a Dutch oven. No wonder he 

 walks in the most dignified manner, instead of 

 hopping, what else can you expect of an "Oven- 

 Bird"? The name was given on account of the 

 size and shape of the nest that is built on the 

 ground. 



From the Fish-hawk's nest, built year after 

 year, in the same tree, one nest upon another, till 

 you see what looks like a cartload of sticks, down 

 to no nest at all ; the eggs deposited on the ground 

 or a flat rock, there are all gradations. So there 

 are all sizes of eggs; from the Ostrich, as big as 

 your head, down to that of the Humming-bird 

 not bigger than a pea. When Jerry Norton, the 

 village liar, told me of birds' eggs bigger than 

 my head, I thought he was lying; when he told 

 me that some bald-headed men had a sun-stroke 

 on a desert and as they lay unconscious, some 

 Ostriches came along and thinking the bald heads 

 their own eggs, sat on them and hatched out bal- 

 let-girls, I knew he was. He must have told the 



