THE LIFE ABOUT THE NEST 



nest which I had had under observation, I deter- 

 mined to study carefully its composition, knowing the 

 birds would not want to make use of it again. The 

 nest rested among the top limbs of a little brush-pile 

 and was just two feet above the ground. Some young 

 shoots had grown up through the brush and their 

 leaves partly covered the nest from view. It had an 

 extreme breadth of ten inches and was five inches 

 high. The inner cup was two and one-half inches 

 deep, and measured the same across the top. In its 

 construction two small weed stalks and eleven slender 

 twigs were used. The latter were from four and one- 

 half to eight inches long. The main bulk of the nest 

 was made up of sixty-eight large leaves, besides a 

 mass of decayed leaf fragments. Inside this bed 

 was the inner nest, composed of strips of soft bark. 

 Assembling this latter material I found that when com- 

 pressed with the hands its bulk was about the size of a 

 baseball. Among the decaying leaves near the base 

 of the nest three beetles and a small snail had found a 

 home. 



[27] 



