310 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



Many of the herons and their allies build great rough nests 

 of sticks and twigs in tall trees, several pairs building on the 

 same tree. The habit of the storks of Europe of constructing 

 their nests on chimney tops is well known, while some of the 

 nests of the African and Oriental species of this group are most 

 remarkable affairs. 



In the days when our wild pigeons were in millions in this 

 country, they frequently built as many as 150 nests in one tree, 

 legions of these birds congregating together in the forests for the 

 purpose during the breeding season, and hundreds of trees were 

 thus occupied. Parrots, as a rule, lay five or six eggs in the hol- 

 low trunks of dead or decayed trees, making little or no nest. 

 But when we come to study such forms as the European cuckoo, 

 or our own Cow blackbird, an entirely new departure is met with, 

 for these birds never make any nest of their own at all, prefer- 

 ring to lay their eggs in the nests of other species, where they are 

 hatched and the young ones reared by the foster parent. 



Quite a number of our vireos build beautiful pensile nests, 

 twixt the forks of some small branch of a low tree. In Fig. 77 I 

 present a photograph of one of these neat nests from my own col- 

 lection. Strange to say, it only contained one young at the time 

 of its discovery. This bird is abundant in eastern North 

 America. 



Various species of humming birds build nests that are truly 

 wonders as examples of avian architecture. Some are extremely 

 small; some are pensile, others are sessile; many closely mimic 

 their surroundings, as the knots or other growths upon trees; 

 often they are most delicately constructed, and covered over with 

 moss or lichens; finally, there are others of odd shapes. It would 

 be simply out of the question to pretend to give even a brief de- 

 scription of a few of these remarkable structures, and the num- 

 ber of species of humming birds now known to naturalists runs 

 far into the hundreds. 



What may be deemed a conventional " nest," as built by an 

 average small bird, is well exemplified in any of those con- 

 structed by many of our common sparrows, finches, buntings, 

 and their kin. A very neat one is seen in the nest of our little 

 Indigo bunting (Passerma cyanea), and one of these I have pho- 

 tographed in situ to illustrate the kind usually built in a small 

 tree, bush, or thicket. It is composed of dry leaves, grasses, 

 fibers, and finer materials for a lining. In the case of this nest 



