THE CITY OF THE BIRDS. 89 



a very uncomfortable one, yet he remains in it 

 a long time, discoursing the lines of his pleasant 

 pastorale at quarter-minute intervals. While he 

 is performing, the parting in the center of his 

 breast is like a deep, narrow, longitudinal gash 

 which closes and expands with every throb and 

 quaver, until it appears in danger of bursting, and 

 thus spilling the music from his cheerful little 

 heart. Frequently in the pauses he bends his 

 head to examine with his conical beak the parting 

 for parasites, or stretches out his neck and half 

 opens his wings, as if about to fly away, when 

 other birds come near him, but finally he thinks 

 better of it and begins his serenade again. His 

 weed and root house is somewhere about these 

 evergreens, but the secret of the particular locality 

 is his own, and I trust safe, although it would be 

 delightful to just look in upon him, if he should 

 be so gracious as to give me a special invitation. 



I am suddenly impressed with the diversity of 

 styles of architecture adopted by the different 

 •species of the birds, and the various locations in 

 which their nests are placed. This mere bunch of 

 sticks lodged in the branches of a scraggy haw- 

 thorn by a pair of grosbeaks, and the swinging 

 hammock of the oriole on the slender drooping 

 twigs of the elm across the way, suggest the 

 question : What is it in the nature of these two 

 kinds of birds that has caused them to build so 



