BIRD CRADLES. 





they should have witnessed the subsequent vocal exercises. The 

 feather-bed disclosed twelve pinkish eggs by actual count, for I 

 remember in humiliation my scandalous pride at having " eleven 

 duplicates for trade." 



There are a number of especially well-known favorites among 

 the nests which should be mentioned, either one of which is a 

 sufficient quest for a summer's walk. 



There is the grass hammock 

 of the indigo-bird, so artfully 

 swung between two or 

 three upright branches 

 of weed ; the skilfully 

 woven basket of the J| 

 red-wing blackbird 

 in the bog, either | 

 meshed within its 

 tussock, twisted into 

 the button-bush, or 

 suspended among the 

 reeds. Then there are 

 the quaint covered nests 

 of the oven-bird at the 

 edge of the brook, the beehive of the 

 marsh-wren among the sedges, or the 

 Maryland yellow-throat in the swamp, and 

 the rare snuggeries of the golden-crested 

 wren and blue, yellow-backed warbler the 

 former a tiny hermitage, built on the 



branch of an evergreen, composed of moss and lichen, with only 

 a small hole left for entrance, and the interior lined with down ; 

 the latter a dainty den, constructed, according to Samuels, of the 

 " long gray Spanish moss (lichen ?) so plentiful in the States of 

 Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The long hairs of the 

 moss are woven and twined together in a large mass, on one 

 side of which is the entrance to the nst a mere hole in the 

 moss. The lining is nothing but the same material, only of finer 



";, V 



'.'Mi 



TO FEATHER THE NEST, 



