ticular 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 she was working by an open window,
one of these birds approached while her back was turned, 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 efforts 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."

[Illustration: BALTIMORE ORIOLE
Upper, male; lower, female]

One day in Kentucky I saw an oriole weave into her nest unusual
material. As we sat upon the lawn in front of the cottage, we had
noticed the bird just beginning her structure, suspending it from a
long, low branch of the Kentucky coffee-tree that grew but a few feet
away. I suggested to my host that if he would take some brilliant yarn
and scatter it about upon the shrubbery, the fence, and the walks, the
bird would probably avail herself of it, and weave a novel nest. I had
heard of its being done, but had never tried it myself. The suggestion
was at once acted upon, and in a few moments a handful of zephyr yarn,
crimson, orange, green, yellow, and blue, was distributed about the
grounds. As we sat at dinner a few moments later, I saw the eager bird
flying up toward her nest with one of these brilliant yarns streaming
behind her. They had caught her eye at once, and she fell to work upon
them with a will; not a bit daunted by their brilliant color, she soon
had a crimson spot there amid the green leaves. She afforded us rare
amusement all the afternoon and the next morning. How she seemed to
congratulate herself over her rare find! How vigorously she knotted
those strings to her branch and gathered the ends in and sewed them
through and through the structure, jerking them spitefully like a
housewife burdened with many cares! How savagely she would fly at her
neighbor, an oriole that had a nest just over the fence a few yards
away, when she invaded her territory! The male looked on approvingly,
but did not offer to lend a hand. There is something in the manner of
the female on such o