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1878.] Variations in the Nests of the same Species of Birds. 37 
of its benefactor. It never would attempt to feed itself even with 
food all about it, and when it was transferred to other hands died 
of starvation in the midst of abundance. Nearly the same 
occurred with a. young mocking bird, who always insisted upon 
having its food held to its mouth. The latter died young, but 
the cedar bird reached maturity, and was two years old without 
learning to feed itself. 
It is contended by some naturalists that the nests of young 
birds are invariably poorly made and not well situated. This, 
however, is a belief that it would not be very easy to verify. That 
birds of the same species do not always build their nests alike, 
that under varying circumstances they will vary their style in a 
very remarkable manner, is a matter of not unfrequent observa- 
tion. Thus the cliff swallow, in wild tracts of country, and in its 
original haunts, constructs, with much labor, a long nest, shaped 
like an inverted retort, with the entrance from below. On Green 
Island, one of the Grand Menan group, I saw a large colony avail- 
ing themselves of two boards put up for their convenience, and 
about half a foot apart, under the eaves of a barn, and all building 
open cup-shaped nests as unlike their typical nests as can be con- 
ceived, 
In the last number of the Nuttall Bulletin, Mr. Brewster con- 
tributes a very interesting paper on the nesting of the yellow- 
throated warbler, Dendreca dominica. The nest found by Mr. 
Brewster was on a stout horizontal branch of a southern pine, set 
flatly on the limb. It was a well made—an unusually well made 
nest, the framework being a few twigs and strips of bark into which 
d been worked a beautiful soft felting of moss and silky down 
of plants, all neatly and firmly compacted. I have seen the nest 
and am inclined to the opinion that it is probably the typical style 
of this bird, whenever it builds in a region where the abundance 
of the Spanish moss does not tempt it to make use of that growth, 
and there to build a totally different nest, with no other frame- 
___ work than the long fibres of the moss afford. In the appendix of 
_ the Ornithology of North America, I refer to several nests of this 
bird built in this latter manner, taken by Mr. Norwood C. Giles, 
ot Wilmington, N.C. Several of these nests were obtained and 
_ well identified, and sent with their parents to the Smithsonian. 
Unaware of this positive identification, Mr. Brewster very naturally 
infers that Mr. Giles must have been mistaken. But this was not 
so. His identification was complete, and only adds another re- 
