ISSUED IN BEHALF OF THE SCIEKCE WHICH IT ADVOCATES. 



Volume II, 



AUGUST, 1876. 



Number 6. 



BIRD ARCHITECTURE. 



OW beautiful are many of the iugen- 

 ious constructions birds use for their 

 homes ! We can find no more in- 

 genuity in some of the most complicate 

 works of man, in comparison to the means 

 of both , than in the nest of the Baltimore 

 Oriole, the Humming Birds, the Marsh 

 Wren and some of the AVarblers and Fly- 

 catchers. We are often struck with their 

 durability, and the adaptation to the cir- 

 cumstances of climate and position, and ad- 

 mire the builder for its skill alone, if for 

 nothing more. Yet it is not the beauty 

 only of this architecture Ave admire ; it is 

 often the peculiarity of structure. Among 

 those that are really interesting is the nest 

 of the Flamingo, a tall structure, made 

 mostly of mud balls and grass, forming a 

 tower-like mound, upon the top of which 

 the bird lays her eggs, incubating them in 

 a standing position. There are also the 

 nests of the Oven Bird, the Magpie, the 

 Cliff Swallow, the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 

 and the Albatross, which show moi-e or less 

 ingenuity and present many peculiarities. 

 Three of the most beautiful nests I ever had 

 the pleasure of seeing were of the Pewee, 

 the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and Baltimore 

 Oriole. They were selected from as many 



as half a dozen specimens of each, and for 

 shape and build they excell any others of 

 the same species I ever met with. The 

 first is large, measuring Gi inches long, 5 

 inches wide (at the base), 4i in depth, in- 

 cluding bottom ; the cavity measixres 2i in- 

 ches in diameter and li in depth. The 

 beauty lies in its composition, which is 

 formed of at least a dozen substances. The 

 first or foundation, is little balls of earth 

 cemented to the papering of an old out-house, 

 mixed with some straws. However there 

 was less earth in this nest than in any I 

 ever saw. The superstructure was mainly 

 moss, of the beautiful livid green usually 

 found on I'ocks ; intersecting and interlac- 

 ing this in all directions, and probably in- 

 tended to strengthen and hold together the 

 whole mass, were several threads of grass 

 and minute hairy fibers of some species of 

 tall weed. On the outside protruded the 

 ends of many stiflp straws, which appeared 

 to issue from a central point in the founda- 

 tion of the nest, serving as supports to the 

 upper part. Among the moss were bits of 

 dry grass, milkweed lint, thistle-down, bits 

 of colored string, pieces of paper, a few 

 very fine shavings and broad, thin strips of 

 grape-vine bark, and a few pieces of the 

 cast-off pods of various small weed-like 

 grasses. These materials studded various 

 portions of the outside of the nest and ap- 



