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Peculiar Nidification of the Bobolink. — During the haying 
season of 1854, 1 found in a meadow where I was at work a nest of the 
Bobolink (. Dolichonyx oryzivnrus ) occupying the space between four stalks 
of a growing narrow dock (. Rumex crisjfius). This nest was suspended 
from four points of its circumference, 90° apart, to the four stalks of the 
plant which grew from the same root. The bottom of the nest was about 
six inches above the ground. It was constructed entirely of vegetable 
material and consisted of two distinctly separate parts. A hemispherical 
cup, in one piece of coarse but neatly woven cloth, very strong and 
very light, was fastened to the living, growing supports by strong 
fibres passing around each stalk above and below a joint and firmly woven 
into the rim of the cup with some of the longer strings interlacing the 
sides. Loups passed through the bottom of the cup were attached to 
diagonal supports. The edge or rim of this cup was about half an inch 
thick at the points of bearing and about one-fourth of an inch in the 
quadrants. The texture just below the rim was closely woven and strongly 
wrought, varying from one-eighth to one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness, 
growing thinner gradually from the edge, and a small space in the lowest 
part was of open work evidently designed to secure good and certain 
drainage. 
In this hanging basket was an elaborate lining of very soft blades of 
grass between which and the cup was an elastic padding. The woven cup 
was about five inches in diameter and five inches deep, the padding about 
half an inch thick, and the lining about the same thickness. The whole 
structure, dock and nest, swayed in every passing breeze but the nest was 
so strongly fastened to the stalks and the plant so securely held by the 
nest that it would have required a hurricane or tornado to have blown it 
away. 
Twenty-two years afterwards, on the 28th of June, 1876, while mowing in 
the same meadow I found a similar nest of the Bobolink suspended from 
lour stalks of the same species of plant growing in very nearly the same 
spot. The two specimens of very unusual and original nidification bore 
a remarkably strong resemblance and only differed to an appreciable ex- 
tent in the method of hanging. In the former case — that of 1854 — the 
stalks grew naturally at the angles of a square; in the latter- that of 
1876 -the stalks naturally grew at the angle of a trapezium and were 
drawn by the ingenious builders to the angles of a square at the points 
of fastening. The stalk which had to be drawn the farthest from its natural 
position was stoutly woven into the side of the cup, the weaving material 
completely covering two joints and the space between them, while in each 
ol the others only one joint was covered and attached simply to the rim. 
The bottom of this nest was eight inches above the ground and the leaves 
of the plant overhung the structure forming a very pretty canopy. 
From the fact that these two nests were found in the same field and in 
very nearly if not precisely the same spot and upon the same species of 
plant, it is probable that the avian architects of 1876 were lineal descendants 
of the builders of 1854. In these productions of the skill of Bobolinks 
we have evidences of systematic, consecutive thought; of plans well laid 
and equally well executed. - Elisha Slade, Somerset Mass. 
BuU.N.0.0, 0, April, 1881, p. y / 7-//^. 
