. The oist . woik, usually about seven or eightinches across, is built up a cup ofrootlets, fine twigs, grass blades, bitsof string, occasionally a piece of bal-ing wire, if the bird can find oneshort enough. Usually, however, es-pecially if the nesting site be in thecountry, this first cup is made almostentirely of rootlets and fine, pliabletwigs, culled from piles of brush leftby tree trimmers. The female Blackbird shapes theinside of this cup with her body, usingas much care as do mosit birds inmaking the soft interior nest. Lyingalong the roo!f of my fathers barn Ihave many a time watched
. The oist . woik, usually about seven or eightinches across, is built up a cup ofrootlets, fine twigs, grass blades, bitsof string, occasionally a piece of bal-ing wire, if the bird can find oneshort enough. Usually, however, es-pecially if the nesting site be in thecountry, this first cup is made almostentirely of rootlets and fine, pliabletwigs, culled from piles of brush leftby tree trimmers. The female Blackbird shapes theinside of this cup with her body, usingas much care as do mosit birds inmaking the soft interior nest. Lyingalong the roo!f of my fathers barn Ihave many a time watched a pair ofthese somiber-coated birds, bothworking like beavers to completetheir home. On the outside of thenest the male bird worked, on the in-side the female, and the latter gath-ered most of the material for the nest. Oftentimes this rootlet-cup is ce-mented together with mud, but inmost cases a mud lining is made fast-ened to the outer cup and to the lin-ing of hair which comes next. Nine 56 tHfi Photo by Reinecke. Nest of Brown Creeper In Situ. times out of ten this inner nest isof horse or cow hair, very rarely offeathers, now and then of fine, drygrass blades. Therefore I have call-ed it the hair lining of the nest,though it is not always of hair. In this respect of mud and hair lin-ing, though the mud layer -seldom cov-ers more than the bottom of the nest,I judge that these birds build some-what as do the Eastern Robins. Thehair lining is one-eighth of an inchthick and so closely woven as to re-tain its shape long after removalfrom the outer nest. From three to eight eggs are laid,ordinarily six. It is absolutely im-possible to describe these eggs; theground color ranges all the way frompallid grey to light green. Markingsare from practically none to heavyblotches and are gray or light lines and scrawls of blackor dark brown are noticeable on someof the eggs. Some resemble the eggsof the Western Mockingbird, still oth-ers are scarcely distingu
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidoist24al, booksubjectbirds
