by a study of the nests
themselves. How many persons have ever tried to answer seriously the
old conundrum: "How many straws go to make a bird's nest?" Let us
examine critically one nest and see what we find. One spring after a
red squirrel had destroyed the three eggs in a Veery's {27} nest which
I had had under observation, I determined to study carefully its
composition, knowing the birds would not want to make use of it again.
The nest rested among the top limbs of a little brush-pile and was just
two feet above the ground. Some young shoots had grown up through the
brush and their leaves partly covered the nest from view. It had an
extreme breadth of ten inches and was five inches high. The inner cup
was two and one-half inches deep, and measured the same across the top.
In its construction two small weed stalks and eleven slender twigs were
used. The latter were from four and one-half to eight inches long.
The main bulk of the nest was made up of sixty-eight large leaves,
besides a mass of decayed leaf fragments. Inside this bed was the
inner nest, composed of strips of soft bark. Assembling this latter
material I found that when compressed with the hands its bulk was about
the size of a baseball. Among the decaying leaves near the base of the
nest three beetles and a small snail had found a home.

{28}

The Veery, in common with a large number of other birds, builds a nest
open at the top. The eggs, therefore, are often more or less exposed
to the Crow, the pilfering Jay, and the egg-stealing red squirrel.
This necessitates a very close and careful watch on the part of the
owners. At times it may seem that the birds are not in sight, and that
the eggs are deserted; but let the observer go too near, and invariably
one or both old birds will let him know of their presence by voicing
their resentment and sending abroad their cries of distress.

_Character of Material Used._--A wide variety of material is used by
birds that build open nests. Cotton and feathers enter largely into
the composition of the lining of a Shrike's nest. In Florida the
Mockingbird shows a decided preference for the withered leaves and
stems of life-everlasting, better known as the plant that produces
"rabbit tobacco." The nest of the Summer Tanager is made almost
entirely of grasses, the outer half being green, freshly plucked blades
that contrast strikingly with the {29} brown inner layer with which the
nest is lined. Man