48 
BIRD CRADLES, 
cocoon silk, I have occasionally discov¬ 
ered evidences that the web-tent of the ap¬ 
ple-tree caterpillar is occasionally raid¬ 
ed for material, having identified num¬ 
bers of the caterpillar skins among 
the web meshes of the vireos and 
redstart. The oriole visits the web- 
nest too, but on a different errand 
for her cradle. I once observed one of 
these birds mysteriously prying about 
one of these tents. It left me hardly 
time to guess its object, but quickly 
thrust its head through the silken 
walls and took its pick of the 
fattest caterpillars in the squirm¬ 
ing interior, carrying them to 
what it evi¬ 
dently consid¬ 
ered as more 
appropriate 
surroundin gs 
in the hang- 
nest above. I 
once found a 
nest of the 
red-eye which 
exhibited a 
marked ento¬ 
mological pref¬ 
erence, being 
composed 
largely of the 
hairy cocoons 
of the small 
tussock moth, and conspicuously deco¬ 
rated with a hundred or more of the 
black skins of the antiopa caterpillar, of 
aU ages. What a singular waste of en¬ 
ergy one would naturally think was 
here revealed in the search for a material 
which at best must be a rare ingredient 
in the Avild gleaning. But the inference 
does injustice to the bird’s intelligence. 
Assuming that there is an advantage in 
the material, and granting the bird even 
a school-boy’s knoAvledge of the habits 
of a conspicuous insect, feAv substances 
could be acquired at a less expense of time 
than these withered skins; for the cater¬ 
pillars of the antiopa liA^e in swarms of hun¬ 
dreds, sometimes of thousands, in the elms 
and swamp willows, and leave their Idack, spiny, 
cast-off skins—of all their fiA^e periodic moults— 
attached to the denuded branches upon which the 
larv£e have fed. 
The Haunt and Home of the 
Redwing. 
In another amusing specimen I found a large 
j^iece of hornet s nest, four inches broad, arranged 
