OPEN NESTS 187 



Our next group of open nest-builders contains the 

 Shrikes (Laniidae). The nests of these birds are 

 placed in trees and bushes, and are of the normal 

 cup-shaped type, loosely but skilfully constructed of 

 twigs, roots, grass stems, and the flower stalks of 

 various plants, often with the flowers attached, and 

 lined with soft materials, such as moss, wool, hair, 

 and feathers. From the Shrikes we pass on to the 

 Waxwings (Ampelidse), in which the same open type 

 of nest prevails. The most familiar species to British 

 ornithologists is the Bohemian Waxwing (Ampelis 

 garrnhis), although it does not breed within our 

 limits, only visiting them as an abnormal migrant at 

 irregular intervals. This species breeds in open, 

 scattered colonies in the northern fir and spruce 

 forests, being very erratic in its choice of a nesting 

 place, seldom resorting to the same locality for two 

 seasons in succession. The bulky and rather deep 

 nest, built from eight to twelve feet from the ground 

 on some convenient branch, is composed externally 

 of twigs and reindeer moss, and lined with dry grass, 

 hair-like tree lichens, strips of inner birch bark, and 

 feathers. The nest cavity is about two inches in 

 depth and four inches in diameter. Our next family 

 of open cup-shaped nest-builders contains the Vireos 

 or Greenlets (Vireonid^), another strictly American 

 group. Here, again, we have the hammock-like type 

 of nest, very similar to that made by the Orioles and 

 White-eyes, being placed in the forking twigs at the 



