706 
handle. The pump being in daily use, 
the nest was destroyed more than a score 
of times. This jealous little wretch has 
the wise forethought, when the box in 
which he builds contains two compart- 
ments, to fill up one of them, so as to 
avoid the risk of troublesome neigh- 
bors. 
The less skilful builders sometimes 
depart from their usual habit, and take 
up with the abandoned nest of some 
other species. The blue jay now and 
then lays in an old crow’s-nest or 
cuckoo’s-nest. The crow-blackbird, 
seized with a fit of indolence, drops its 
eggs in the cavity of a decayed branch. 
I heard of a cuckoo that dispossessed a 
robin of its nest; of another, that set 
a blue jay adrift. Large, loose struc- 
tures, like the nests of the osprey and 
certain of the herons, have been found 
with half a dozen nests of the black- 
bird set in the outer edges, like so many 
parasites, or, as Audubon says, like the 
retainers about the rude court of a feu- 
dal baron. 
The same birds breeding in a south- 
ern climate construct far less elaborate 
nests than when breeding in a north- 
ern climate. Certain species of water- 
fowl that abandon their eggs to the sand 
and the sun in the warmer zones, build 
a nest and sit in the usual way in Lab- 
rador. In Georgia, the Baltimore oriole 
places its nest upon the north side of 
the tree; in the Middle and Eastern 
States, it fixes it upon the south or east 
side, and makes it much thicker and 
warmer. I have seen one from the 
South that had some kind of coarse 
reed or sedge woven into it, giving 
it an openwork appearance, like a bas- 
ket. 
Very few species use the same mate- 
rial uniformly. I have seen the nest 
of the robin quite destitute of mud. In 
one instance, it was composed mainly 
of long black horse-hairs, arranged in 
a circular manner, with a lining of fine 
yellow grass; the whole presenting 
quite a novel appearance. In another 
case, the nest was chiefly constructed 
of a species of rock moss. 
_ The nest for the second brood dur- 
Bird’s-Nests. 
[June, 
ing the same season is often a mere 
make-shift. The haste of the female 
to deposit her eggs.as the season ad- 
vances seems very great, and the strue- 
ture is apt to be prematurely finished. 
I was recently reminded of this fact by .. 
happening, about the last of July, to 
meet with several nests of the wood 
or bush sparrow in a remote black- 
berry field. The nests with eggs were 
far less elaborate and compact than the 
earlier nests, from which the young had 
flown. 
Day after day, as I go to a certain 
piece of woods, I observe a male in- 
digo-bird sitting on ‘precisely the same 
part of a high branch, and singing in 
his most vivacious style. As I ap- 
proach, he ceas€s to sing, and, flirting 
his tail right and left with marked em- 
phasis, chirps sharply. In a low bush 
near by, I come upon the object of his 
solicitude — a thick, compact nest com- 
posed largely of dry leaves and fine 
grass, in which a plain brown bird is 
sitting upon four pale blue eggs. 
The wonder is, that a bird will leave 
the apparent security of the tree-tops, 
to place its nest in the way of the many 
dangers that walk and crawl upon the 
ground. There, far up out of reach, 
sings the bird; here, not three feet 
from the ground, are its eggs or help- 
less young. The truth is, birds are 
the greatest enemies of birds, and it is 
with reference to this fact that many 
of the smaller species build. 
Perhaps the greatest proportion of 
birds breed, along highways. I have 
known the ruffed grouse to come out 
of a dense wood, and make its nest at 
the root of a tree within ten paces of 
the road, where, no doubt, hawks and 
crows, as well as skunks and foxes, 
would be less liable to find it out. Trav- 
ersing remote mountain-roads through 
dense woods, I have repeatedly seen 
the veery, or Wilson’s, thrush, sitting 
upon her nest, so near me that I could 
almost take her from it by stretching 
out my hand. Birds of prey show 
none of this confidence in man, and, 
when locating their nests, avoid rather 
than seek his haunts, 
