106 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



One such nest that fell late in the summer I took 

 pains to unravel twig by twig. It was a tedious task. 

 There were four hundred and eighty-two twigs, and two 

 hundred and four blades of grass, used as a lining. 

 With these were bits of inner bark of certain plants, a 

 number of chicken feathers, and a long, black shoelace. 



Another nest was lined with many feathers, some 

 hair, ravellings of rope, and bits of lead-colored muslin ; 

 and over all these, as though they had not been found 

 as comfortable as it was thought they would be, was 

 quite a thick layer of long grass, beautifully wound 

 about the sides of the nest, and here and there placed 

 among the twigs so that each should retain its proper 

 place. It was the most ingeniously finished grakle's 

 nest I have ever examined. Indeed, were it not that 

 they trust too much to luck, as to the force of winds, 

 grakles would be very fair nest- builders. But this is 

 not asserted with the intention of conveying the idea 

 that a parallelism obtains between intelligence and nest- 

 building. The latter is a much less intricate proceeding 

 than has been supposed, and the labor of collecting the 

 materials is greater than the skill required to make a 

 comfortable nest with them. 



Every colony, I think, commences nest -building at 

 the same time, and there is little difference in the num- 

 ber of days required to finish the structures. Certainly 

 some pairs are quicker motioned than others, and so get 

 ahead with their work. This is true of all birds, just 

 as it is true of mankind; but the difference in the case 

 of the colony of grakles, in 1884, w^as but five days, and 

 this was kept up in all that subsequently transpired. 



