278 Life and Timmortality. 
THREE-STORY NEST OF YELLOW WARBLER. 
Showing the Builder’s Manner of Out-witting the Cow Bird. 
lichens, and just as big as a walnut, conveys a good idea of 
its appearance. But all nests are not made of cotton. The 
yellow wool that forms the dress of the undeveloped fern- 
frond, or the red shoddy that is wind-swept into heaps outside 
some woollen factory, is often made to take the place of the 
down of the seed of the poplar. Not to be mentioned in 
the same breath with these, is the nest I am now about to 
describe. It was saddled upon the horizontal bough of a 
small white oak-tree that grew on the side of a thicket, and 
was peculiar from the nature of the material that composed 
its inner fabric. This substance resembled burnt umber in 
color, and was as soft as the finest wool, or the fluffiest down, 
and proved, upon examination, to be the mycelium of a 
fungus which the builders had gathered from decaying stumps 
or mildewing tree-branch. 
