II4 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



quality." I have seen but two specimens of this nest one com- 

 posed entirely of the long gray lichen which beards the patri- 

 archal trees of our Northern forests, and the other of a shorter 

 species found on fences and rocks. 



The nest of the blue -winged yellow warbler is really worth 

 a search. Few of our ornithologists have found it. According 

 to Wilson, it is usually placed in a bunch or tussock of long 

 grass, and is in the form of an inverted cone or funnel, the bot- 

 tom thickly bedded with dry beech -leaves, the sides formed of 

 the dry bark of strong weeds, lined with fine dry grass. These 

 materials are not placed in the usual manner, circularly, but shelv- 

 ing downward on all sides from the top, the mouth being wide, 

 the bottom very narrow and filled with leaves. 



Nor must I forget to mention that curious and anomalous 

 three, four, and once, I believe, five- storied nest which has occa- 

 sionally rewarded the search of the persevering oologist a novel 

 piece of architectural art a monument, as it were, to the intelli- 

 gence and indefatigable pluck of the yellow warbler in overtop- 

 ping the wit of the parasitic cow- bird, each story of the curious 

 domicile being erected over the insinuated portentous egg, and 

 sufficiently separated therefrom to insure against its incubation, 

 when the builder shall at last have exhausted her adversary's re- 

 sources and nestled in peace on the summit of her lofty pile, an 

 apt if facetious embodiment of " Patience on a monument." 



We have already alluded in superlative terms to the nest of 

 the blue-gray gnatcatcher, but even that artistic production must 

 yield to its easy rival and model of the humming-bird, in truth 

 the prize among all our nests. Well does the ruby-throat deserve 

 the medal which he wears upon his breast. From picture or 

 cabinet specimens this beautiful mimetic structure saddled on its 

 branch is familiar to most of my readers, few of whom, I am 

 sure, will ever have disclosed it in its haunts, even though the 

 eye may have rested on it a dozen times. The construction of 

 this nest, barely an inch and a half in diameter, is well described 

 by Wilson : " The outward coat is formed of small pieces of bluish- 

 gray lichen, that vegetates on old trees and fences, thickly glued 



