2i4 CURIOUS HOMES AND THEIR TENANTS. 



find, a cone about as large across its base as a dinner 

 plate. This is not done alone to beautify the cabin, 

 but to strengthen its central support, which is to sus- 

 tain the entire weight of the construction. It selects 

 for its rafters the long, straight, slender stems of a 

 kind of orchid {Bend irMinn) that grows in large 

 dense tufts on the mossy boughs of trees, sending 

 out upright branches about twenty inches in length. 

 One reason the wise birds have for selecting these 

 steins is that the plant to which they belong is an 

 apiph'ite, or air plant, and requires only air and mois- 

 ture to live and grow. The small and pretty leaves, 

 so closely packed together, will continue alive and 

 fresh after the stems upon which they have grown 

 are built into the walls of the cabin, that would other- 

 wise soon become unsightly and fall into decay. 



All about the top of the center pole and slanting 

 outward from it, regularly laid with their upper ends 

 resting upon the central support and their lower ones 

 on the ground, are the long stems placed, all around, 

 except immediately in front, ^\'here an opening is 

 left for a doorway, so that when finished the cabin is 

 quite regular in form and conical in shape. Many 

 other stems are also used, and so compactly inter- 

 woven that the whole structure is strong, and imper- 

 vious to the rain. Around the central cone of moss 

 runs a horseshoe-shaped apartment or gallery. The 

 cabin is about twenty inches high, and twice that 

 in diameter. 



" But," says their discoverer, " the aesthetic tastes 

 of our gardeners are not restricted to the construe- 



