266 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



CATCHER of America, which always uses the cast slough of snakes 

 when building its nest. The reason no one seems to know, 

 though several opinions have been offered ; one person thinking 

 the snake-slough is peculiarly grateful to the young birds which 

 are intended to lie upon it, and another, that the presence of the 

 cast slough acts as a scarecrow, and frightens away obnoxious 

 birds. One conjecture is as good as another, and both are absurd- 

 ly bad. 



The species which we have now to notice is the Eed-eted 

 Fly-catcher {Muscicapa oUvacea) popularly known as "Whip- 

 Tom-Kelly," from its peculiar articulate cry, which is said to bear 

 a strangely exact resemblance to the words " Tom Kelly, Whip- 

 tom-kel-ly," and is uttered so loudly and briskly that it can be 

 heard at a considerable distance. It inhabits a tolerably wide 

 range of country, being found from Georgia to the St. Lawrence, 

 and in many parts is plentiful. 



The nest of the Eed-eyed Fly-catcher is small and very neatly 

 made, and, contrary to the usual custom of pensile nests, is placed 

 near the ground, seldom at a height of more than five feet. 

 Bushes and dwarf trees, such as dogwood or saplings, are usually 

 chosen by the bird when it looks about for a branch wherefrom 

 to hang its nest. A wonderful array of materials is employed by 

 the feathered architect, which makes use of bits of hornets' nests, 

 dried leaves, flax fibres, strips of vine bark, fragments of paper 

 and hair, and binds all these articles firmly together with the silk 

 produced by some caterpillars. The lining is made of fine grass- 

 es, hair, and the delicate bark of the vine. 



The nest is wonderfully strong — so compact, indeed, that after it 

 has served the purpose of its architect, it is usurped by other birds 

 in the following year, and saves them the trouble of building en- 

 tire nests of their own. Even the mammalia receive some benefit 

 from the nest, for the field-mouse often takes 'possession of it, and 

 rears its young in the pensile cradle. 



An allied species, the White-eyed Ply-catcher {Muscicapa 

 cantrix), builds a very pretty pensile nest, and uses so much old 

 newspaper in the construction of its home that it has gone by the 

 name of the Politician. The other materials used in the struc- 

 ture of the nest are bits of old rotten wood, vegetable fibres, and 

 other light substances, woven together with wild silk, and the 

 lining is mostly of dried grasses and hair. 



The form of the nest is nearly that of an inverted cone, and it 



