OUR FAMILIAR BIRDS. 21 



deviate from the time -honored custom of their fore- 

 fathers. Our little vireos even hung their nest on the 

 branch of a hickory-tree on which the moss was hang- 

 ing, yet they persistently turned their backs upon this 

 innovation, and seemed to look with distrust and sus- 

 picion upon all the feathered builders who were so 

 quick to take up with anything new. The inner bark 

 of the honeysuckle, and nice long strips of bark from 

 cedar posts or from any good, respectable, woody plant, 

 was what their family had always used in the con- 

 struction of their domiciles, and they were determined 

 to preserve the established customs of their ancestors. 

 And the moss might swing for all the little wood- 

 pewees (Oontopus virens) cared ; had not their ances- 

 tors always used fibrous roots and strips of inner bark, 

 and should they be tempted to deviate from their hon- 

 ored customs by tnis flaunting pendant from a for- 

 eign bough ? So they too passed it coldly by, with 

 suspicious looks on other families who were erecting 

 their domiciles so .near to theirs with this strange 

 material. 



Yet the wood-pewee's nests are not all of one pattern 

 by any means. There are some fine architects among 

 this species. One nest, located between the forked 

 twigs of an oak, was very symmetrical in outline, and 

 almost covered externally with beautiful lichens. The 

 body of the nest was composed of fine fibrous roots, in- 

 terwoven with a soft, downy substance which looked 

 like the rusty wool of the cotton-grass {Eriophorum 



