32 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



CURIOUS HOMES. 



(continued) 



Now we will seek the ravines among the purple mountains which 

 raise their heads in the distance. Here on a shelving rock where the 

 spray of a crystal mountain torrent dashes over it, is a beautiful elip- 

 tical globe of soft green moss, the home of the American Water Ouzel. 

 Could we enter the circular door in the side, we should find its strong" 

 arched walls of twigs, leaves and grasses, plastered over with mud. 



Some nests are placed behind waterfalls, and the birds are obliged 

 to pass through the water in going to and from the nests. 



Descending to the prairies, let us pause at one of the open doors 

 which confront us, around the doorway are scattered bits of the skins of 

 rats, mice and even rabbits' ears. What shall we find in this under- 

 ground home, prairie-dog, badger, gopher or snake? No, we have 

 delayed our visit too long to find the original tenants at home. 

 Now the uncanny occupants are burrowing owls who have re- 

 furnished the apartments with feathers, fine weed stalks and other 

 soft substances. They are very sociable birds, for we may find as 

 many as twenty nesting together in one hole. Here we come upon 

 several sitting in the sunshine near their dugouts, they bow and bend 

 to us with the greatest politeness, and we can now understand why the 

 name of the How-d'y-do owl has been given them. 



Cigam! Now we are in our new possession off the Florida coast. 

 Here we will make the acquaintance of a striking figure in the land- 

 scape. A bird five feet in length, with long legs and neck, its bill re- 

 sembling a bent spatula in shape, its plumage of a brilliant scarlet, 

 with wings tipped with black. This is the Flamingo. 



Here we find Mrs. Flamingo at home, her ungainly legs doubled 

 beneath her as she sits upon the nest, built (probably soon after the 

 rainy season) of mud scooped up from about the base, sometimes 

 bound together with grasses and sticks. She will have need of patience 

 for it will be more than a month ere the young birds will emerge from 

 the two white eggs. To guard against inroads from water the nest is 

 built about a foot high, tapering from a base a foot in diameter to ten 

 inches at the top, which is hollow. Frank Chapman described a colony 

 of these nests on Bahama mangrove flats which contained, by actual 

 count, two thousand mud dwellings. 



Here in the sunny south we will linger until February, when we will 

 return to New England on our magic rug and end our journey amidst 

 the interesting homes of her granite hills. 



