CRESTED CASSIQUE, OK CRESTED ORIOLE. 245 



conspicuous, as the wind sways them backwards and foi-wards 

 from the bough. 



The same may be said respecting the nests of other Cassiques, 

 and the stay-at-home reader is often apt to wonder why the 

 traveller does not ascend every tree on which he sees a nest, 

 and bring it down. There are two reasons why such nests are 

 not so common in European museums as their number would 

 seem to promise. One reason is, that the trees are not easily 

 climbed. Some of them run to a height of eighty or a hundred 

 feet without a bough ; others have stems of great girth and 

 wondrous smoothness, so that to ascend them is as difficult as 

 to climb a greased pole at a fair ; others again, which do not 

 appear to present any difficulties, have their stems beset with 

 thorny spikes, from an inch to two inches in length, as strong 

 as nails and as sharp as needles. 



Supposing, however, that the traveller is a practised climber, 

 and always carries with him a rope and climbing spurs, and that 

 by dint of the pointed spurs sticking into the tree, and the strong 

 leather gaiters repelling the thorns, and the rope enabling him 

 to pull himself upwards, he has arrived at the branches, he still 

 finds many an obstacle to overcome. In the first place, distances 

 are mightily deceptive when viewed from below, and a nest 

 which appears from the ground to be close to a certain branch, 

 is found really to be some yards on one side, and as many 

 above. 



Most birds, especially the tropical birds, have a custom of 

 placing their nests at the very ends of boughs, where the twigs 

 could not sustain the weight of a monkey, much less that of a 

 man ; so that the adventurous climber finds himself scarcely 

 nearer his object than when he stood upon the ground. Such 

 nests can only be obtained by skilfully throwing a rope around 

 the branch to which they are hung, drawing it up, severing it 

 as near the nests as possible, and then lowering the whole to 

 the earth. 



Supposing, however, that he has successfully overcome his 

 difficulties, and has been able to reach the nest, he stiU finds 

 himself in a very awkward position on account of the mul- 

 titudinous insects which swarm upon tropical trees, and the 

 majority of which can either sting or bite savagely. There are 

 many kinds of wasps, larger, fiercer, and more irritable than 



