as a flash, but as light as any feather. Two eggs are the
complement. They are perfectly white, and so frail that only a
woman's fingers may touch them. Incubation lasts about ten days. In
a week the young have flown.

The only nest like the hummingbird's, and comparable to it in
neatness and symmetry, is that of the blue-gray gnatcatcher. This is
often saddled upon the limb in the same manner, though it is
generally more or less pendent; it is deep and soft, composed mostly
of some vegetable down covered all over with delicate tree-lichens,
and, except that it is much larger, appears almost identical with
the nest of the hummingbird.

But the nest of nests, the ideal nest, after we have left the deep
woods, is unquestionably that of the Baltimore oriole. It is the
only perfectly pensile nest we have. The nest of the orchard oriole
is indeed mainly so, but this bird generally builds lower and
shallower, more after the manner of the vireos.

The Baltimore oriole loves to attach its nest to the swaying
branches of the tallest elms, making no attempt at concealment, but
satisfied if the position be high and the branch pendent. This nest
would seem to cost more time and skill than any other bird
structure. A peculiar flax-like substance seems to be always sought
after and always found. The nest when completed assumes the form of
a large, suspended gourd. The walls are thin but firm, and proof
against the most driving rain. The mouth is hemmed or overhanded
with horse-hair, and the sides are usually sewed through and through
with the same.

Not particular as to the matter of secrecy, the bird is not
particular as to material, so that it be of the nature of strings or
threads. A lady friend once told me that, while working by an open
window, one of these birds approached during her momentary absence,
and, seizing a skein of some kind of thread or yarn, made off with
it to its half-finished nest. But the perverse yarn caught fast in
the branches, and, in the bird's effort to extricate it, got
hopelessly tangled. She tugged away at it all day, but was finally
obliged to content herself with a few detached portions. The
fluttering strings were an eyesore to her ever after, and, passing
and repassing, she would give them a spiteful jerk, as much as to
say, "There is that confounded yarn that gave me so much trouble."

From Pennsylvania, Vincent Barnard (to whom I am indebted for other
curious facts) sent me this interestin