98 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
It was so placed that the bottom of the nest did not 
rest directly on the limb, but hung a little to one 
side, so that the future little birds would rest in the 
swing of a hammock rather than on the hard founda- 
tion of the branch itself. The nest was lashed to the 
limb with strand after strand of cobwebs carried and 
wound around and around, until the whole structure 
was firmly anchored by myriads of almost invisible 
but tough little ropes. Inside, it was lined with the 
soft yellowish-white fluffy fleece found inside milk- 
weed pods. Next came a layer of reddish-brown seed- 
husks, all bound and lashed together with a network 
of cobwebs. On the outside was a layer of dull 
ashy-green lichen-scales. Each minute separate 
fragment was fitted into a mosaic which covered 
the whole nest. Outside of everything was another 
almost invisible network of cobwebs, like the net of 
a balloon which holds the round globe within. 
There must have been hundreds of gossamer strands 
making up this network, all so fine that only by the 
closest examination could they be seen. 
Every bird’s nest is a miracle, but I don’t know 
any that is such a marvel of industry and ingenuity 
and beauty as that of the ruby-throated bird. Later 
on, when Mrs. Hummingbird was through with her 
home, I collected it, and had an opportunity of see- 
ing just what the building of that nest meant to 
her — for, sad to say, Mr. H. B. never moves a 
claw to help in home-building. The labor of col- 
lecting the spider-webs alone, to say nothing of 
the hundreds of lichen-flecks and seed-husks, would 
