NEW THOUGHTS ABOUT NESTS 295 



an inch in length, even a bird would make but 

 little progress in forming a cup-shaped nest, were 

 it not that the sticky saliva provided cement 

 strong and ready at hand. So the chimney swift 

 finds no difficulty in forming and attaching her 

 mosaic of twigs to a chimney, using only very 

 short twigs which she breaks off with her feet 

 while she is on the wing. 



How wonderfully varied are the ways which 

 birds adopt to conceal their nests. Some avoid 

 suspicion by their audacity, building near a fre- 

 quented path, in a spot which they would never 

 be suspected of choosing. The hummingbird studs 

 the outside of its nest with lichens, and the vireo 

 drapes a cobweb curtain around her fairy cup. 

 Few nests are more beautiful and at the same time 

 more durable than a vireo 's. I have seen the 

 nests of three successive years in the same tree, 

 all built, no doubt, by the same pair of birds, the 

 nest of the past summer perfect in shape and 

 quality, that of the preceding year threadbare, 

 while the home which sheltered the brood of three 

 summers ago is a mere flattened skeleton, remind- 

 ing one of the ribs and stern post of a wrecked 

 boat long pounded by the waves. 



The subject of nests has been sadly neglected 

 by naturalists, most of whom have been chiefly 

 interested in the owners or the contents ; but when 

 the whys and wherefores of the homes of birds 

 are made plain we shall know far more concern- 



