116 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 
softly lined with silky vegetable down. Even in the drawer of a 
cabinet, without its living natural framework, it is a perfect little 
gem in beauty. What, then, must it have been in its original 
position, with the graceful, waving leaf of the maiden-hair fern for 
its appropriate and natural setting. It was fastened to the fern 
not two feet above the ground, and to this frail support it was 
secured by threads of spider-webs so slender as to be hardly 
visible.” + 
We know not what other nest-treasures yet await us in the 
woods. There are many rare finds yet in store for the ornithol- 
ogist in the long list of bird-species, well known by their skins, 
and even by their songs, but whose nidification is wrapped in 
mystery—dozens of the warblers, sparrows, flycatchers, and vireos, 
and others yet awaiting their true historian. 
