UNDER THE MAPLES 



The orioles in my part of the country always use 

 the same material in the body of their nests a 

 kind of soft, gray, flaxlike fiber which they ap- 

 parently get from some species of everlasting flower. 

 Woven together and quilted through with strings 

 and horse-hairs, it makes strong, warm, feltlike 

 walls. In the nest sent me from Michigan the 

 walls are made of something that suggests brown 

 human hair, except that it is too hard and brittle 

 for hair. 



Our orchard oriole also makes a pendent nest, 

 but not so deep and pocketlike as that of the 

 Baltimore oriole, and showing no such elaborate 

 use of strings and hairs. It is made entirely of 

 some sort of dried grass, very elaborately woven 

 together. 



Bullock's oriole of California weaves its nest en- 

 tirely of the long, strong threads which it draws out 

 of the palm-leaves. The only one I have seen was 

 suspended from the under side of one of those 

 leaves. 



I think the prize nest of the woods, if we except 

 the nest of the hummingbird, is that of the wood 

 pewee. It is as smooth and compact and sym- 

 metrical as if turned in a lathe out of some soft, felt- 

 like substance. Of course, the phcebe's artistic ma- 

 sonry under the shelving rocks, covered with moss 

 and lined with feathers, or with the finest dry grass 

 and bark fibers, sheltered from the storms and be- 



