BIRD CRADLES. IOI 
without obvious evidences of struggle and disappointment—fresh 
commentary on a well known text in proverbial philosophy. 
There is obvious wisdom in the use of cocoons and hornets’ 
nests, so much sought after by pensile builders—compact, tough 
fabrics in themselves, they are naturally chosen for their strength. 
But it is not easy to explain, on any grounds of utility, the un- 
canny discrimination of the great crested flycatcher, whose nest 
in the hollow tree would seem to demand no thought for other 
qualities than softness and warmth. Once, in my boyhood, while 
investigating the fascinating hollow in an old willow-tree, where 
I had once surprised a day-dozing owl, I found the familiar 
matted felt at the bottom largely intermixed with fragments of 
snake-skin. Knowing the habits of snakes in the casting of 
their skins, having once or twice found them in the grass, I fell 
to wondering whether it could be a common practice of the 
black snake or “racer” to climb a tree for the purpose of exu- 
viation. Later on the mystery was solved, having learned in 
my ornithology that the great crested flycatcher considered the 
snake-skin the ze plus ultra of nest-linings. The nidification 
of this bird usually takes place in the deserted retreat of the 
woodpecker, and is seldom without its complement of one or 
more snake-skins, which are frequently interwoven in a bed of 
hog-bristles and feathers, rather indicating a peculiar fancy for 
CXUVIE. 
But here, again, who knows but what some stray vireo’s nest 
—those catch-alls, samplers of nature’s nest-textiles— may not 
have given the flycatcher the hint. I have a vireo’s nest in my 
possession which is largely composed of snake-skins, and they. are 
frequently thus found. 
The purple finch, according to some authorities, is addicted 
to a similar whim occasionally. Of course either of these excep- 
tional cases may represent nothing more than a successful raid 
on some abandoned nest of the flycatcher. 
The toad is said to habitually swallow its cast-off skin, in 
which case the red-eye must have once surprised him in the gas- 
tronomic act, for in one of my analyses of these nests I discov- 
