BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
261 
hardly know anything of their presence except when they are colonized 
for the summer. 
The labor of building is entered into with considerable alacrity, and 
is mainly the result of the combined action of both birds, for a period of 
five or six days. The exact time is hard to estimate, and is dependent 
upon the character of the structure, position, and the industry and patience 
of the architects. When the nest is jolaced horizontally upon the ground 
in the midst of a clump of sedges, it is , loosely constructed, and costs hut 
three days of steady workmanship. But when elevated to the tops of 
tussocks, or to the branches of shrubs and trees, where more compactness 
and finish are necessary, the time is essentially protracted. The disposition 
to nest in trees and bushes, which is now a prominent feature of the 
species, looks, at first sight, as if there would be, at an early day, an 
abandonment of old sites, and the taking on of new relations. While the 
species has thus gained a great advantage in lifting up its nest beyond 
the power of the waters to do it harm, it has, by selecting such growths 
in close contiguity to marshes, shown its predilection for such places, by 
reason of the facilities which they afford for food-detection. 
Brewer describes the nest as being pilaced in low bushes, at a height 
of hut a few feet from the ground. This is true in certain localities, but 
where there is a scarcity of such growths, as is the case where salt-water 
marshes abound, then the birds are compelled to resort to the sedges. In 
Atlantic County, N. J., in the summer of 1874, as many as fifty nests 
were seen and examined thus built, in less than an acre of ground. The 
same distinguished writer, in speaking of their composition, says “ they 
are made externally of coarse sedges firmly interwoven, the interstices being 
cemented with clay or mud.” And further, that the upper side of the 
entrance is “protected from the rain by a projecting edge.” This may be 
true in certain places, hut careful examinations of a score of nests from as 
many localities, remotely situated from each other, fail to show the exist- 
ence of argillaceous or other elements, much less the trace of anything 
that might be exaggerated into a roof. Audubon describes it as being 
