6o AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



and of what these homes are built, without fear of disturbing the own- 

 ers. Doubtless we shall find more of the little gray cups in which the 

 baby vireos have been rocked than of any other nests at this time. I 

 have one before me that a red-eyed vireo swung last summer between 

 the forked branches of a young oak, beneath a green leaf umbrella. 



It is a wonderful little cradle. You or I, with ten fingers and a heap 

 full of gray matter to direct them, could not form the like. 



How many miles the old birds must have gone in their search for the 

 fibres and down to build it! We find in it plant fibres, cobwebs, bits of 

 roots, leaves, cocoons, decayed wood, scraps from hornets' nests, and, 

 as usual, some bits of news paper; for the vireos usually place good 

 reading within reach of their little ones. 



No doubt we shall find many mud huts of the robins, and the similar 

 homes of the Wood Thrush, nearer the ground. The wonderfully woven 

 pockets of the Orioles still swing from many an elm, and you may find a 

 deserted bird tenement which has been rented for a winter nursery by a 

 family of field mice. If" we put our hands in the deserted home of the 

 woodpecker we may find a lining of snake skins. The Great-crested 

 Flycatcher is said to always use a snake skin to upholster its nest. 



It is too late to find the dainty flat nest of the Pewee, shingled with 

 gray lichens, or the Dutch oven of the Oven-bird, and the rough struc- 

 ture of twigs thrown together by the crows, the Cuckoos, and the Green 

 Herons have long ago fallen apart. Nor would a search earlier in the 

 season have shown you the nests of the Nighthawk or the Whip-poor- 

 will, for they simply camp out on a gray rock or mossy hollow. I think 

 you could make a long list of the materials used in the nests you might 

 find in a winter's walk — moss, wool, seed pods, feathers, gum, rags, cat- 

 kins, the hair of various animals — but you may complete the list, I know 

 you can add many to it. But we speak of the "bird homes." They 

 were but the homes of the baby birds. Do not think of the nest of a 

 bird as a home where it returns to sleep at night. O, no; you will find 

 the full grown bird at night fall, holding tightly by one foot to a branch 

 in some high tree top, with its feathers fluiTed out like a great puff ball, 

 and its head snugly tucked beneath its wing, motionless until reminded 

 by the caress of the glowing fingers of the morning sunlight, that a 

 new day is at hand. 



POLLY'S ADVENTURE 



(In this account of Polly's mishaps, the sharp eyes of our readers may 

 find concealed, the names of twenty common birds.) 



Many years ago, in a little brown house on a hillside, lived a little 

 maiden named Polly Robinson. Besides Polly, there were her big 

 brother Martin, four-year-old Bob, and baby Phebe, who was yet a tod- 



