unobserved. As for the numerous swallow tribe, their nests are never found now-a-days, in trees.
Of all these regular summer visitors, robin builds the largest and most conspicuous nest; he will often pick up long strings, and strips of cloth or paper, which he interweaves with twigs and grass, leaving the ends hanging out carelessly; I have seen half a dozen paper cuttings, eighteen inches long, drooping like streamers in this way, from a robin's nest. The pensile nest of the oriole is more striking and peculiar, as well as much more neat than any other. Specimens of all the various kinds built in trees are now plainly seen in the branches; many have no doubt fallen, but a good number have kept their place until to-day, through all the winter storms. We amused ourselves this afternoon with looking after these nests in the trees as we passed along the different streets of the village.
All these village visitors seem a very sociable race: they generally collect in little neighborhoods, half a dozen families in adjoining trees, leaving others for some distance about them untenanted. It is pleasant, also, to notice how frequently they build near houses, about the very doors and windows, as though out of friendliness to man, while other trees, quite as good as those chosen, are standing vacant a little farther off. In several instances this afternoon, we saw two, three, and even four nests in one tree, shading the windows of a house; in very many cases, the three or four trees before a house were all tenanted; we observed a cottage with three little maples recently planted in the door-yard, and so much trimmed that they could scarcely boast a dozen branches between them, yet each had its large robin's nest. The
