BIRD-NEST MATERIALS 221 



having selected fibres of inner bark, spider, and cocoon 

 silk, and strips from the milk-weed stalk strong as flax 

 to moor its cradle. 



The compact body of the nest gives a singular vari- 

 ety ; here are strips of white and yellow birch bark, as- 

 ter calyxes, cobwebs, a blue-bottle fly, spider-egg silk 

 tufts, slender roots, bits of pith, skeletonized leaves, 

 pine-needles, old cocoons of the tussock-moth, grass, 

 caterpillar- hairs, dandelion seeds, moss, and feathers. 

 A broad piece of mottled gray paper- like substance 

 forms the outside base of the nest. We might have 

 been certain of finding this a fragment of hornet's- 

 nest, one of the favorite fabrics of all the vireos. And 

 what is this white weather-beaten fragment which 

 crops out beneath it? A bit of newspaper! Further 

 unravelling shows a number of similar pieces embedded 

 in the fabric, and one or two are seen on the ground 

 beneath the nest. 



Such were the ingredients of a certain vireo's nest 

 which I once found, and which I have selected as my 

 present specimen. It was a nest of the red-eyed vireo, 

 and though quite an average specimen of its kind, it 

 proved in one respect a remarkable disclosure, as I 

 will explain. Most of the fragments of the nest I 

 threw away, but I found in the newspaper bits a rev- 

 elation which led me to preserve them most carefully. 

 Not that the newspaper element was an exceptional 

 rarity, for all the vireos have a fancy for this peculiar 

 material. Indeed, the white-eyed vireo was called the 

 "politician" by an old ornithologist because of this 

 very fondness for the newspaper. But why did I pre- 

 serve these particular newspaper selections above oth- 

 ers? As I have said, the nest was that of a red-eyed 



