164 
NATURAL HISTORY 
sed of rude materials, is made with much art, quite cover- 
ed with thorns, and just a hole left sufficient for entrance. 
The nests of the orioles are contrived with wonderful 
sagacity ; they are hung at the end of some bough or 
between the forks of extreme branches. All the galli- 
naceous, and strutheous orders lay their eggs on the 
ground. The columbine race makes a most artless nest, 
a few sticks laid across may suffice. Most of the passe- 
rine order build their nests in shrubs or bushes, and some 
in old walls, or banks. Some in the torrid zone are 
pensile, from the boughs of high trees; that of the taylor 
bird is a wonderful instance. Some of this order, as 
larks and goatsuckers, build on the ground. Some swal- 
lows make a curious plaster nest beneath the roofs of 
houses, and an Indian species makes its nest of a certain 
glutinous matter, which are collected as delicate ingre- 
dients for soups of certain epicures. — I^lost of the cloven 
footed water fowl, or waders, lay on the ground. Spoon- 
bills and the common herons build on trees, and make 
up large nests with sticks &g. Storks build on churches, 
or the tops of houses. Coots make a great nest near the 
water side. Grebes in the water, a floating nest, adhering 
to some reeds. Avosets, terns, some of the gulls, mer- 
gansers, and ducks build on the ground; the last stjrip the 
down from their breasts to make a warmer nest for their 
young. Auks and guillemots lay their eggs on the na- 
ked shelves of high rocks. Penguins in holes in the 
ground. Among the pelicans, that which gives name to 
the genus, makes its nest in the desert, on the ground: 
shags sometimes on trees, corvorants and gannets oj> 
high rocks, with sticks; dried algae and other course ma- 
terials. 
Rapacious birds in general lay few eggs. Eagles and 
the larger kind fewer than the lesser* Ihe eggs of fal- 
cons and owls are rounder than those of most other birds, 
they lay more than six. The order of pies vary greatly 
In the number of their eggs. Parrots lay only two or 
three white eggs: crows lay six eggs, greenish mottled 
and dusky. Cuckoos as far as we can learn, lay only 
two. Woodpeckers, wrynecks, and king-fishers, lay eggs 
