THE CUCKOOS AND THE OUTWITTED COW-BIRD 47 



identity of this pretty little warbler is certainly 

 familiar to most observant country dwellers, even 

 if unknown by name, though its golden -yellow 

 plumage faintly streaked with dusky brown upon 

 the breast would naturally suggest its popular 

 title of " summer yellow-bird." It is one of the 

 commonest of the mnio-tiliido', or wood-warblers, 

 though more properly a bird of the copse and 

 shrubbery than of the 

 woods. 



This nest is a beau- 

 tiful piece of bird 

 architecture. In a 

 walk in search of one 

 only a day or two ago 

 I procured one, which 

 is now before me. It 

 was built in the fork 

 of an elder-bush, to 

 which it was moored 



by strips of fine bark and cobweb, its downy 

 bulk being composed by a fitted mass of fine 

 grass, willow cotton, fern wood, and other similar 

 ingredients. It is about three inches in depth, 

 outside measurement. But this depth greatly 

 varies in different specimens. Our next speci- 

 men may afford quite a contrast, for the yellow 



