BIRD CRADLES. Ir r 



on with the saliva of the bird, giving firmness and consistency 

 to the whole as well as keeping out moisture. Within this are 

 thick matted layers of the fine wings of certain flying seeds, 

 closely laid together; and lastly the downy substance from the 

 great mullein and from the stalks of fern lines the whole. The 

 base of the nest is continued around the branch, to which it 

 closely adheres ; and when viewed from below appears a mere 

 mossy knot or accidental protuberance." 



I have found but two in my lifetime, but am confident that a 

 systematic search among the orchards in the glittering trail of 

 the bird as he leaves the trumpet blossoms would reveal one or 

 two more. For there is a strange inconsistency in the bird, 

 which, in spite of its secretive art work, does not hesitate to re- 

 veal it by her telltale actions, hovering about an intruder's head 

 like a sphinx- moth in the twilight, and, far from decoying one's 

 attention away from her treasure, like other birds, deliberately 

 settling herself thereon in preference to alighting elsewhere a 

 conscious jewel that would seem to know its most appropriate 

 setting. 



The United States is favored with but a dozen species of the 

 humming-bird, only one of which is found east of the plains. 

 But what glints and gleams and scintillations and spangles among 

 the flowery tropics! where the hundreds of species of these sun- 

 gems sport among their suggestive legion of companion orchids, 

 each feathery atom with its especial whim of nest, here suspended 

 among slender grasses, there hung upon a tendril or poised upon 

 a leaf, or perhaps glued flat upon its swinging, drooping tip. But 

 there is a choice even among diamonds, and it may be doubted 

 whether even the famed tropics afford a more unique example of 

 artistic refinement than this of our native Western humming-bird, 

 described by Dr. Brewer, a species only recently discovered by 

 Mr. Allen, whose name it bears. 



" This nest is of a delicate cup-shape, and is made of the most 

 slender branches of the hypnum mosses, each stem bound to the 

 other and all firmly tied into one compact and perfect whole by 

 interweavings of silky webs of spiders. ' Within it is finely and 



