156 
SINGING BIRDS. 
instant, sitting in the same range, thinks the exercise of the gun 
must be credited only by the havoc which it produces against 
a friendly, useful, and innocent visitor. 
Towards the close of May or beginning of June the Cherry 
Birds, now paired, commence forming the cradle of their young ; 
yet still so sociable are they that several nests may be observed 
in the same vicinity. The materials and trees chosen for their 
labors are various, as well as the general markings of their eggs. 
Two nests, in the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, were formed 
in small hemlock-trees, at the distance of 16 or 18 feet from 
the ground, in the forks of the main branches. One of these 
was composed of dry, coarse grass, interwoven roughly with a 
considerable quantity of dead hemlock sprigs, further con- 
nected by a small quantity of silk-weed lint, and lined with 
a few strips of thin grape-vine bark, and dry leaves of the 
silver fir. In the second nest the lining was merely fine root- 
fibres. On the 4th of June this nest contained 2 eggs, — the 
whole number is generally about 4 or 5 ; these are of the usual 
form (not remarkable for any disproportion of the two ends), of 
a pale clay white, inclining to olive, with a few well-defined 
black or deep umber spots at the great end, and with others 
seen, as it were, beneath the surface of the shell. Two or 
three other nests were made in the apple-trees of an adjoining 
orchard, one in a place of difficult access, the other on a de- 
pending branch easily reached by the hand. These were 
securely fixed horizontally among the ascending twigs, and were 
formed externally of a mass of dry, wiry weeds, the materials 
being firmly held together by a large quantity of cudweed 
down, in some places softened with glutinous saliva so as to 
be formed into coarse, connecting shreds. The round edge of 
the nest was made of coils of the wiry stolons of a common 
Cinquefoil then lined with exceedingly fine root-fibres ; over 
the whole, to give elasticity, were laid fine stalks of a slender 
jmicus, or minute rush. In these nests the eggs were, as de- 
scribed by Wilson (except as to form), marked with smaller 
and more numerous spots than the preceding. From the late- 
ness of the autumn, at which period incubation is still going 
