172 EYE SPY 



the Baltimore oriole suspends its deep swinging 

 hammock, as well as the plentiful meshing of 

 horse - hair woven through the body of the nest. 

 The nest of the orchard oriole is even more re- 

 markable as a piece of woven texture. Wilson, 

 the ornithologist, by careful unravelling of a grass 

 strand from one of these nests, found it to have 

 been passed through the fabric and returned 

 thirty-four times, the strand itself being only thir- 

 teen inches long, a fact which prompted an old 

 lady friend of his to ask " whether it would be 

 possible to teach the birds to darn stockings." 

 The horse-hair in the nest of the hang-bird gives 

 it a wonderful compact strength, capable of sus- 

 taining a hundred times the weight of the bird. 

 Upon unravelling one, I found it intermeshed 

 fourteen times in the length of ten inches, which 

 would probably have given a total number of forty 

 passes in the full length of the hair. No one 

 will question the sagacity which such materials 

 imply ; but what is to be said of a bird that se- 

 lects caterpillar-skins as a conspicuous adornment 

 for her domicile ? And here is a vireo's nest 

 with a part of a toad-skin prominently displayed 

 on its exterior, or perhaps a specimen such as I 

 have previously described abundantly covered 

 with snake -skins. These, of course, are whims 

 pure and simple. 



In the linings of many nests we find an equal 



