JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 159 
‘* The laverock sings a bonnie lay 
Above the Scottish heather ; 
It sprinkles down from far away 
Like light and air together. 
He drops the golden notes to greet 
His brooding mate, his dearie ; 
I only know one song more sweet, 
The wood notes of the Veery.” 
In considering the class of birds noted for their brilliancy of 
plumage three come in for special attention—the tanager, the oriole 
and the indigo bird. In this connection the account of the nesting 
operations of the oriole was perhaps especially interesting. 
: “The oriole or ‘hang-bird,’ is an adept at house building. I 
watched one last spring weaving the threads of its nest together in 
the bough of an elm, and truly an interesting operation it was. It 
began by tying four strings to the twigs and joining them together at 
the lower ends. Then other bits of string, bark, hair and other 
materials were added and carefully woven together by the bill of the 
architect. Then, by and by, when the structure began to take 
shape, the feet and body of the bird came into play also, till the nest 
‘was rounded out and given its proper form. Sometimes a string 
was brought which was not needed, and it was carefully tied to a 
twig near by until it should be required. ‘The neighborhood around 
was of course thoroughly searched for building materials, and I 
noticed among other things that a last year’s nest was despoiled of 
its available strings and hair. A little fellow warbler was building at 
the same time in a tree across the road and the little rascal some- 
times made sad havoc of the oriole’s carefully collected materials. 
She did not seem to be in the least disturbed by the morality of the 
thing, for she evidently deliberately watched until the oriole was ab- 
sent on other business, and then slipping quietly over, took her 
choice of a string or a hair to line her own nest. Once or twice the 
oriole returned rather sooner than was expected and then the little 
yellow pilferer beat a precipitate retreat. During the whole opera- 
tion of nest building the bright coated paterfamilias was enjoying 
life at its sweetest among the apple trees in my garden, leaving the 
solicitous mother bird to perform her arduous task and warn off in- 
quisitive intruders alone and single-handed.” 
In dealing with the last group of birds four were selected to 
