OPEN NESTS 167 



constructs a tiny cup-like nest of wool and fine hair, 

 disguising the outside with little bits of green moss 

 and lichens, attached with cobwebs, placing it between 

 the fronds of some small fern on the banks of a stream. 

 This bird breeds at San Domingo. Humming-birds 

 have frequently been watched during the actual pro- 

 cess of building their delicate little nests. Gosse 

 records how he watched a female Long-tailed Hum- 

 ming-bird {Trochilus polytmus) in the act of building 

 its nest, formed of moss, cotton down, lichens and 

 spiders' webs, and suspended from a slender twig. 

 He watched her fly to the face of a rock clothed with 

 fine soft moss, and whilst hovering before it pluck 

 piece after piece until a large bunch had accumulated 

 in her bill. With this she flew to the nest, seated 

 herself on it and began to work in the new material, 

 pressing and arranging and interweaving them with 

 her bill, while she fashioned the cup of the nest by 

 pressure of her breast, moving round as she sat. Mr 

 Otto Emerson similarly remarked the nest-building of 

 Allen's Humming-bird {Selasphorus alleni) whilst con- 

 structing its cradle on a climbing rose tree beneath 

 a porch. He tells us how the female commenced 

 the nest on the end of the stalk by bringing a 

 quantity of willow cotton and spiders' webs ; how she 

 placed herself on the chosen spot, " then with her bill, 

 running it here and there around the edge of the 

 bottom, picking out a bit here and there, to place 

 some other in its place, then working her wings in 



