304 
INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 
slow, but interesting musician, nearly ceases his song, a 
few feeble farewell notes only being heard to the first 
week in September. 
This species, like the rest of the genus, constructs a 
very beautiful pendulous nest, about 3 inches deep, and 
2^- in diameter. One, which I now more particularly 
describe, is suspended from the forked twig of an oak, in 
the near neighbourhood of a dwellinghouse in the coun- 
try. It is attached firmly all round the curving twigs by 
which it is supported; the stoutest external materials or 
skeleton of the fabric is formed of interlaced folds of 
thin strips of red cedar bark, connected very intimately 
by coarse threads, and small masses of the silk of spiders’ 
nests, and of the cocoons of large moths. These threads 
are moistened by the glutinous saliva of the bird. Among 
these external materials are also blended fine blades of 
dry grass. The inside is thickly bedded with this last 
material, and fine root fibres, but the finishing layer, as 
if to preserve elasticity, is of rather coarse grass-stalks. 
Externally the nest is coated over with green lichen, at- 
tached very artfully by slender strings of caterpillars’ silk, 
and the whole afterwards tied over by almost invisible 
threads of the same, so as to appear as if glued on ; and 
the entire fabric now resembles an accidental knot of 
the tree grown over with moss. Another nest was fixed 
on the depending branches of a wild cherry tree, 40 or 
50 feet from the ground. This was formed of slender 
bass strips wound crosswise, and held down with cater- 
pillars’ silk. The bottom was also principally floored with 
large fragments of white paper, the whole scattered over 
sparingly with bits of lichen and spiders’ nests, and very 
delicately lined with tops of fine bent grass. The eggs, 
about 4, are white, with a few deep ink-colored spots 
of two shades, a very little larger than those on the eggs of 
