beneath the nests of the cat-bird and the oriole. The red-eyed
vireo, on the other hand, though having apparently an easier task than
the latter, in the lesser depth of her pensile nest, commonly abandons
it altogether to the unwelcome speckled ovum--always, I believe, if the
cow-bird has anticipated her own first egg.

[Illustration]

But we have a more remarkable example of opposition in the resource of
the little yellow warbler, which I have noted as one of the favorite
dupes of the cow-bird--a deliberate, intelligent, courageous defiance
and frequent victory which are unique in bird history, and which, if
through evolutionary process they became the fashion in featherdom,
would put the cow-bird's mischief greatly at a discount. The identity
of this pretty little warbler is certainly familiar to most observant
country dwellers, even if unknown by name, though its golden-yellow
plumage faintly streaked with dusky brown upon the breast would
naturally suggest its popular title of "summer yellow-bird." It is one
of the commonest of the _mnio-tiltidae_, or wood-warblers, though more
properly a bird of the copse and shrubbery than of the woods.

[Illustration]

This nest is a beautiful piece of bird architecture. In a walk in search
of one only a day or two ago I procured one, which is now before me. It
was built in the fork of an elder-bush, to which it was moored by strips
of fine bark and cobweb, its downy bulk being composed by a fitted mass
of fine grass, willow cotton, fern wood, and other similar ingredients.
It is about three inches in depth, outside measurement. But this depth
greatly varies in different specimens. Our next specimen may afford
quite a contrast, for the yellow warbler occasionally finds it to her
interest to extend the elevation of her dwelling to a remarkable height.
On page 50 is shown one of these nests, snugly moored in the fork of a
scrub apple-tree. Its depth from the rim to the base, viewed from the
outside, is about five inches, at least two inches longer than necessity
would seem to require, and apparently with a great waste of material in
the lower portion, as the hollow with the pretty spotted eggs is of only
the ordinary depth of about two inches, thus hardly reaching half-way to
the base. Let us examine it closely. There certainly is a suspicious
line or division across its upper portion, about an inch below the rim,
and extending more or less distinctly completely around the nest