BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
31 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the South and West, have an average external 
diameter of five inches, and a height of three. The cavities, however, are 
more uniform, and generally measure three inches in width, and one and 
a half in depth. But when a nest is built in a bush, the outer basket- 
like frame is carefully interwoven with, and strongly secured to, adjacent 
twigs. Though somewhat rudely put together, it is nevertheless firmly and 
compactly woven. The outer framework is usually made of rushes, strong 
leaves of the iris, and, in some instances, of an additional article apj^a- 
rently similar to mud. Within is packed a mass of coarse materials, 
over which is placed a thick lining of grasses and sedges. These nests, 
in the matter of size, differ from the former chiefly in the particulars of 
length and thickness. The internal dimensions offer no very striking 
exceptions. 
The nest represented in the Plate is three-fourths of the natural size, 
and was obtained by the writer in the summer of 1879, by ^^urchase, from 
Mr. Alexander M. Reynolds, of Philadelphia. It was built in a field of 
grass, many of the stalks of which being Avrought in its composition. In 
figure it resembles an inverted cone, and is beautifully, symmetrically and 
compactly put together. The outside is formed of grasses and rushes, very 
neatly and intricately interwoAmn, and shoAvs here and there a head of 
dried pappus plucked from some species of liaAvkAveed. The inside is lined 
Avith sedges and fine blades of grass. As shown in the draAving, the nest 
occujAies a rather conspicuous position. This AA^as not the case in its natu- 
ral location. Being found in the centre of a large field, it is at once 
evident that the authors had spared no j^ains to make the concealment as 
complete as possible. In height, this fabric measures nine inches. Its 
external diameters above, heloAV, and in the middle, are, respectively, six, 
tAvo, and four and a half inches. The Avidth of the cavity is three inches, 
and the de^kh three. 
The eggs are oval in contour, of a light bluish ground-color, and 
are marbled, blotched and streaked Avith light and dark purple, chiefly 
about the greater extremity. In size, they A^ary considerably ; the aA'erage 
