134 BIRDS'-NESTS. 



arrange the material she had brought, using her breast 

 as a model. 



The other nest I discovered in a dense forest on 

 the side of a mountain. The sitting bird was dis- 

 turbed as I passed beneath her. The whirring of her 

 wings arrested my attention, when, after a short pause, 

 I had the good luck to see, through an opening in 

 the leaves, the bird return to her nest, which ap- 

 peared like a mere wart or excrescence on a small 

 branch. The humming-bird, unlike all others, does 

 not alight upon the nest, but flies into it. She enters 

 it as quick as a flash but as light as any feather. Two 

 eggs are the complement. They are perfectly white, 

 and so frail that only a woman's fingers may touch 

 them. Incubation lasts about ten days. In a week 

 the young have flown. 



The only nest like the humming-bird's, and com- 

 parable to it in neatness and symmetry, is that of the 

 blue-gray gnatcatcher. This is often saddled upon the 

 limb in the same manner, though it is generally more 

 or less pendent ; it is deep and soft, composed mostly 

 of some vegetable down covered all over with delicate 

 tree-lichens, and, except that it is much larger, ap- 

 pears almost identical with the nest of the humming- 

 bird, 



But the nest of nests, the ideal nest, after we have 

 left the deep woods, is unquestionably that of the Bal- 

 timore oriole. It is the only perfectly pensile nest 

 we have. The nest of the orchard oriole is indeed 

 mainly so, but this bird generally builds lower and 

 shallower, more after the manner of the vireos. 



