48 MY STUDIO NEIGHBORS 



warbler occasionally finds it to her interest to ex- 

 tend the elevation of her dwelling to a remark- 

 able height. On page 50 is shown one of these 

 nests, snugly moored in the fork of a scrub apple- 

 tree. Its depth from the rim to the base, viewed 

 from the outside, is about five inches, at least two 

 inches longer than necessity would seem to re- 

 quire, and apparently with a great waste of mate- 

 rial in the lower portion, as the hollow with the 

 pretty spotted eggs is of only the ordinary depth 

 of about two inches, thus hardly reaching half- 

 way to the base. Let us examine it closely. 

 There certainly is a suspicious line or division 

 across its upper portion, about an inch below the 

 rim, and extending more or less distinctly com- 

 pletely around the nest. By a very little persua- 

 sion with our finger-tip the division readily yields, 

 and we discover the summit of the nest to be a 

 mere rim — a top story, as it were — with a full- 

 sized nest beneath it as a foundation. Has our 

 warbler, then, come back to his last years home 

 and fitted it up anew for this summer's brood ? 

 Such would be a natural supposition, did we not 

 see that the foundation is as fresh in material as 

 the summit. Perhaps, then, the bird has already 

 raised her first spring brood, and has simply ex- 

 tended her May domicile, and provided a new 



