Waterbury Democrat., 1901-05-03


 with it's hair mattress, is familiar to us all, also the adobe houses of the phoebe and robin. That of the wood thrush is quite similar to the robins, built near the ground, of sticks and grasses, with a thin lining of mud.
 A wood thrush built her nest one summer almost within sight of the road on Riverside, and artistically draped about it large piece of brown cloth (once white), completely covering all but the upper rim of the nest. It was a pretty sight to see the head of the mother just above the graceful fes- toons of muslin.
 The bobolink, meadow lark and red winged blaekbird build nests of grass. That of the red-winged is bulky pocket hung between reeds and alder stems. That of the meadow lark tests on the ground and is concealed by tufts of grass, which form a roof
 Some of our birds take less pains with their temporary homes. The coarse nest of twigs of the scarlet tan ager, and the cuckoo, whose nest is but a few twigs laid in bush, or on a forked bough, and the crows bum dle of sticks, are illustrations. Listen to what Maurice Thompson has said, about the nest of the little green
 heron: When find green heron's nest in willow tree by the brookside. I always have q good health giving laugh. Here is something uncondi- tionally funny, an telegraph of orig inal and absolute jocundity. A great pile of loose sticks, looking as if they had been blown there by q mad dash of wind, and atop of the mass, in a shallow depression, beautiful celadon eggs shining like sea bubbles. 1t is Il nest caricature. filled with pathos of rudimentary art" Some one tells or a green heron's nest which was so lightly thrown together that the sticks dropped off one by one in the summer storms, so that when the last young bird was ready to try its wings there remained just one stick of the nest for a perch.
 The kingfisher shows a new style of nest, a burrow in the bank, six or eight feet deep. that might well be the hole of some sly animal rather than the home of a bird. The bank swallow also has a tunnel about a foot long, lined with grass and a few feathers and lives in colonies
 The cliff swallow has a bracket or ground shaped nest placed under leaves or rocky cliffs, and the barn swallows shallow bracket made of pellets of mud and straw is placed against raf- ters. The chimney swift glues q tiny wall pocket to the chimney.
 The woodpeckers each year cut for themselves long cylindrical passages ill tree trunks aud lay their eggs at the bottom of these, making no nest be- yond the fine chips of wood produced towards the close of their work.
 The old holes are quietly approprl- ated by the- nuthatches, chickadees, brown creepers and great crested fly catchers. Each has her notions of re- furnishing the borrowed homes. The chickadees put down a soft carpet of caterpillar skins. or spiders webs, mixed with plant down. The nuthateh- es are satisfied with q mat of grass, while the great crested fy-catcher in- variably upholsters with cast off snake skins.
 Bluebirds. wrens and martins appre- ciate boxes placed about our homes nest was found directly on top of poor swallows nest where there lay four fresh eggs.
 We need not describe the nest of our most common bird, this bird, 'ttoo pestiferous to mention," will unless prevented. inonopolize the bird houses, mob bluebird, wren, martin or swal- low, drive off, break up nests and. de- your the eggs of our robins, catbirds, song .sparrows and wrens. Van Dyke says: '"The Kingdom of ornithology is divided into two departments, real birds and English sparrows The Eng nish sparrow Is not a real bird, it is little beast.''
 The whip-poor-will lays its eggs in a messy hollow in a rock or on the ground. If its young are discovered it will carry them to another place in It's mouth, as cat does kittens.
 The night hawk also lays on bare stffface, but prefers open fields or waste pastures and even the flat roofs of city houses.
 Many sea birds build no nests, but lay their eggs on the cliffs, or in shall low places. There are some birds, too that have way of utterly neglecting to make home of any character what eeyr for their future progeny, and are content, the shiftless things, to lay their eggs in the nests of other species, to be cared for by foster parents. Our cowbird and the cuckoo of the old world are examples of birds possessing such habits. Clreos, redstarts, sum- mer yellow birds and Maryland yellow threats are oftenest imposed upon in this manner. Sometimes the yellow bird, on the discovery of the strangers egg in its nest, will build a floor over it, on which it will lay it's own eggs. Sometimes this is repeated and nests are found four stories deep. It is q ludicrous sight to see pair of these foster parents feeding an infant four times as large as themselves and abundantly able to care for itself