BIRD CRADLES. 
57 
pieces of bluish-gray lichen, that vege¬ 
tates on old trees and fences, thickly 
glued on with the saliva of the bird, giv¬ 
ing firmness and consistency to the whole 
as well as keeping out moisture. Within 
this are thick matted lavers of the fine 
vvungs of certain fiying seeds, closely 
laid together ; and lastly the downy sub¬ 
stance from the great mullein and from 
the stalks of fern lines the Avhole. The 
base of the nest is continued around the 
branch, to which it closely adheres ; and 
when vieAved from below apj^ears a mere 
mossy knot or accidental 
ance.” 
I have found but two in my lifetime, 
but am confident that a systematic search 
among the orchards in the glittering 
trail of the bird as he leaves the trum- 
jDet blossoms, would reveal one or two 
more. For there is a strange inconsist¬ 
ency in the bird, which, in spite of its 
secretive art work, does not hesitate to 
reveal it by her teU-tale actions, hover¬ 
ing about an intruder’s head hke a 
sphinx moth in the twihght, and, far from 
decoying one’s attention away from her 
treasure, like other birds, deliberately 
settling herself thereon in preference to 
alighting elsewhere—a conscious jewel 
that would seem to know its most aj)- 
j)ropriate setting. 
The United States is favored with but 
a dozen species of the humming-bird, 
only one of which is found east of the 
plains. But what glints and gleams and 
scintillations and spangles among the 
flowery trojAcs ! where the hundreds of 
species of these sun-gems sport among 
their suggestive legion of companion 
orchids, each feathery atom with its 
especial whim of nest, here suspended 
among waving grasses, there hung upon 
a tendril or jjoised upon a leaf, or per¬ 
haps glued flat upon its swinging, droop¬ 
ing tip. But there is a choice even 
among diamonds, and it may be doubted 
whether even the famed trojiics afibrd 
a more unique example of artistic refine¬ 
ment than this of our native Western 
humming-bird, described by Dr. Brewer, 
a species only recently discovered by Mr. 
Allen, whose name it bears. 
“This nest is of a delicate cup-shape, 
and is made of the most slender branches 
of the hypnum mosses, each stem bound 
to the other and all firmly tied into one 
comj^act and perfect whole, by inter¬ 
weavings of silky webs of spiders. 
Within it is finely and softly lined with 
silky vegetable down. Even in the 
drawer of a cabinet, without its long 
natural framework, it is a perfect httle 
gem in beauty. What, then, must it 
have been in its original position, with 
the graceful, waving leaf of the maiden¬ 
hair fern for its appropriate and natural 
setting. It was fastened to the fern not 
two feet above the ground, and to this 
frail support it was secured by threads 
of spider-webs so slender as to be hardly 
visible.” 
We know not what other nest-treas- 
ures yet await us in the woods. There 
are many rare finds yet in store for the 
ornithologist in the long list of bird- 
species, well known by their skins, and 
even by their songs, but whose nidifica- 
tion is wrapped in mystery — dozens of 
the warblers, sparrows, flycatchers, and 
Aureos, and others yet awaiting their true 
historian. 
