BIRDS'-NESTS. 135 



The Baltimore oriole loves to attach its nest to the 

 swaying branches of the tallest elms, making no at- 

 tempt at concealment, but satisfied if the position be 

 high and the branch pendent. This nest would seem 

 to cost more time and skill than any other bird struct- 

 ure. A peculiar flax-like substance seems to be al- 

 ways sought after and always found. The nest when 

 completed assumes the form of a large, suspended, 

 gourd. The walls are thin but firm, and proof against 

 the most driving rain. The mouth is hemmed or 

 overhanded with horse-hair, and the sides are usually 

 sewed through and through with the same. 



Not particular as to the matter of secrecy, the bird 

 is not particular as to material, so that it be of the 

 nature of strings or threads. A lady friend once told 

 me that while working by an open window, one of 

 these birds approached during her momentary ab- 

 sence, and, seizing a skein of some kind of thread or 

 yarn, made off with it to its half-finished nest. But 

 the perverse yarn caught fast in the branches, and, in 

 the bird's efforts to extricate it, got hopelessly tangled. 

 She tugged away at it all day, but was finally obliged 

 to content herself with a few detached portions. The 

 fluttering strings were an eye-sore to her ever after, 

 tnd passing and repassing, she would give them a 

 spiteful jerk, as much as to say, " There is that con- 

 founded yarn that gave me so much trouble." 



From Pennsylvania, Vincent Barnard (to whom I 

 im indebted for other curious facts) sent me this in- 

 teresting story of an oriole. He says a friend of his, 



