1 2 4 BIKDS'-NES TS. 



culty in discovering the nest. It was placed but a few 

 feet from the maple-tree, in a bunch of ferns, and 

 about six inches from the ground. It was quite a 

 massive nest, composed entirely of the stalks and 

 leaves of dry grass, with an inner lining of fine, dark- 

 brown roots. The eggs, three in number, were of light 

 flesh-color, uniformly specked with fine brown specks. 

 The cavity of the nest was so deep that the back of the 

 sitting bird sank below the edge. 



In the top of a tall tree, a short distance further on, 

 I saw the nest of the red-tailed hawk, — a large mass 

 of twigs and dry sticks. The young had flown, but 

 still lingered in the vicinity, and, as I approached, the 

 mother bird flew about over me, squealing in a very 

 angry, savage manner. Tufts of the hair and other 

 indigestible material of the common meadow mouse 

 lay around on the ground beneath the nest. 



As I was about leaving the woods my hat almost 

 brushed the nest of the red-eyed vireo, which hung 

 basket-like on the end of a low, drooping branch of 

 the beech. I should never have seen it had the bird 

 kept her place. It contained three eggs of the bird's 

 own, and one of the cow-bunting. The strange egg 

 was only just perceptibly larger than the others, yet 

 three days after, when I looked into the nest again and 

 found all but one egg hatched, the young interloper 

 was at least four times as large as either of the others, 

 and with such a superabundance of bowels as to al- 

 most smother his bedfellows beneath them. That the 



