132 HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



fish evidently had been carried sidewise by the 

 stiff swirl of the current, as the thorn was driven 

 squarely into its side and penetrated the entire 

 body. 



One of the most peculiar nests it has fallen to my 

 lot to work around was originally built by a shite- 

 poke. It rested in the sharply branching crotch 

 of a young elm tree, where two small limbs had 

 grown out from the side of the trunk, and from 

 the pressure of the surrounding thicket had kept 

 nearly parallel with the trunk of the tree. The 

 entire structure started in this narrow crotch, 

 widening as the limbs spread until it was fully 

 twenty inches in height. Toward the top the 

 sticks used in the outer wall were the thickness 

 of a lead pencil and two feet in length — a few of 

 them even longer. The nest was so weather- 

 beaten that it undoubtedly had stood for several 

 seasons, and it was so firmly constructed that it 

 gave promise of standing for as many more. 

 Using this structure as a foundation, a yellow- 

 billed cuckoo had begun in the nesting cavity and 

 built her usual nest, a few sticks and twigs loosely 

 laid, with a slight lining of dried willow catkins 

 and the down of last year's weed growth. At the 

 time I first investigated the nest it contained four 

 beautiful big cuckoo eggs. The nest made such a 

 lovely picture I hastily set up my highest step- 

 ladder, and from the top of it, about level with the 

 top of the nest, I reproduced the structure from 



