seems to be instinctive, is usually a loose structure of fibres 
which they gather from surrounding plants, but the older 
 pirds have learned to take man-provided material: for they — 
ee ee is eae 
pipe gl Bar lays 
Wee toe a ee 
nie x ST eet te Ss Ae A eh ats aki peal Ug css Os ed, 
use strings, ravellings, bits of wool, and horse hair in their 
better built hanging nests. A gem of a nest was found in 
one yard in California, which had been made of soft, white, 
human hair, that had been placed near by a woman, for the 
orioles. To the man who found it, the nest was a precious 
treasure, for he knew it was made of his mother’s hair. 
Yellow is not the only rainbow color that Nature uses 
on her northern birds. Warblers, blackbirds, jays, wood- 
- peckers, red-winged blackbirds, hummingbirds, and Califor- 
~~ nia purple finches all are trimmed brilliantly, but she has 
made no pair of birds more attractive than the Lazuli Bunt- 
ings. Whether the first glimpse of this sky-blue and red- 
buff sparrow-like male creature is caught in the top of an 
evergreen in Yosemite National Park, or on a hilltop in 
Seattle, the thought will come that sky, cloud, and earth 
have given their choicest tints to adorn him. Perhaps, 
however, for once a jewel may have been a bird model: no 
_ turquoise mounted in rusty gold with — splashes was 
ever more beautiful. 
His ruddy-brown mate shows but a hint of the danger- 
ous blue on her back, and unless you see his attentions to 
_ her she would never be taken as a number of his family. 
They are not so common on the coast as inland, yet lucky 
_ observers have seen them in spots they have chosen to 
a brighten from Kansas to the Pacific and from British 
_ Columbia to Lower California, and Mr. Rathbun says: 
_ “More common than formerly” in Seattle. | 
Perhaps no other “spots of brightness in the air” will 
SO quickly attract attention as when placed on the head of 
1 the sooty-black Western Pileated Woodpecker. The brilliant 
_ poppy-red crest and red and white cheeks of this huge 
creature, the largest of the western woodpeckers are sO 
i uncouth that once seen always remembered. A skin that 
157 
