WOOD NOTES AND NEST HUNTING. 1 23 



plainly enough where his home is hidden. Here, 

 in the fork of a young choke-cherry tree, which 

 grows with others iff a clump half-covered with 

 green-briers, the nest is placed. In it are three 

 panting young birds, which, at the slightest noise 

 or movement, immediately lift up their heavy, 

 shot-eyed heads, and open wide their yellow-edged 

 bills, waiting patiently for the dainty spanner to 

 be put in their red mouths. How admirably suited 

 is the posture to receive their food! Nature, it 

 seems, could not have devised a better plan. The 

 day-old chick is not more adroit in scratching, or 

 the young mammal more ready to seek its fountain 

 of milk, than these blind, helpless nestlings in ad- 

 justing their hungry little gullets to receive the 

 pliant worm. The nest, which is composed of 

 grasses and plant-strips, interwoven with spiders' 

 webs, as it approached the well-turned, cup-like 

 cavity, resembled in model that of the yellow war- 

 bler's. It is much worn. A large rent appears on 

 one side, and some of the fastenings have yielded 

 to the extra weight, letting it down, so that the 

 young seem in danger of rolling out. But the 

 birds, to prevent further rupture, have lashed 

 the other side more firmly to the branch by passing 

 around it many times the tough strips, and cement- 



