310 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
and built one-half of the circle its full height; the last half of the 
nest she built in one day with the exception of finishing the out- 
side with lichens. June 16th she laid the first egg and was busy 
at work all day covering the outside of the nest with lichens, and 
was one week longer finishing the outside of the nest. June 17th 
she sat on the nest all day; on the 18th the second egg was laid 
and was larger than the first egg. On the morning of the 3d of 
July both of the eggs were in the nest and at noon there were 
two young birds; this makes the period of incubation fifteen 
days from the time the last egg was laid. J uly 10th, we examined 
the nest, and found but one young bird; it had a little down on 
it, but no feathers. July 13th, I examined the young bird and 
found it covered with pin feathers. On the 15th it picked its 
feathers and had quite a long bill. The 19th, after being fed 
it stood up in the nest and made its wings move rapidly, as 
though it was trying to fly. On the 23d of July the bird left 
the nest, which made twenty days that it remained in the nest. 
We did not see a male humming bird near the nest at any time, 
but a neighbor’s cat caught and killed two or three male birds, and 
it may be that it caught the mate to our bird. The old and young 
birds remained in the garden until late in the autumn and were 
quite tame; the young bird would allow me to walk within four 
feet of it and examine it. You will see by this that both the 
period of incubation and the time that the young bird remained 
in the nest are longer than given by Audubon and Samuels. — 
Lazsurton Jounson, Bradford, Mass. 
PosiTION OF THE BRAcHIopops. — At the meeting of the Boston 
Society of Natural History held March 15, Prof. Edward S. Morse 
referred to the communication of Mr. Wm. H. Dall, “On the Re- 
lations of the Brachiopoda” read at the preceding meeting. 
Prof. Hyatt said his objections to Prof. Morse’s classification of 
the Brachiopoda had heretofore rested wholly upon the presumed 
affinities of the Polyzoa and Ascidia. He had been led by the 
similarities of the adult animals of the two groups to partially fol- 
low Prof. Allman in his opinion that these two groups were closely 
related. In a paper on the Fresh Water Polyzoa (Proceedings 
Essex Institute, vol. iv.) he had compared them, but had at the 
same time shown that the differences were much greater between 
the Polyzoa and Ascidia than between the former and the Brachio- 
pods. Thus, there is no muscular system in the Ascidia which 
SR eS | RE Se E g et ee een ere) ane ee Ee 
