These men had a ladder made of rattan, on which they had to climb in order to reach the nests. The man who climbed highest had a long four-pronged spear, with a lighted candle fixed on it a few inches below the prongs. By the aid of the light he found some nests. With the spear he took them unbroken from the rock. When he had gotten a nest between the prongs of the spear, he held it so the man lower down on the ladder could reach the end of it, and let it down through his hands until he could take the bird's nest from between the prongs of the spear and put it in his pocket. When Aunt Dorothy's friend came back to America he brought some of these bird's nests with him and gave one to her. The Chinese people think these bird's nests are very good to eat, and make soup of them. Aunt Dorothy put the nest, which she had taken from the chimney, into her cabinet with the one from the island in the Pacific ocean. One day in the fall she took some of her little friends for a walk and they picked up a basketful of leaf stems under the elm and linden trees, and with them they made some bird's nests which they covered with glue and which looked very much like the one Aunt Dorothy found in her chimney. Mary Grant O'Sheridan. [Illustration: RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER. (_Sphyrapicus ruber._) FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES. COPYRIGHT 1900, BY A. W. MUMFORD, CHICAGO.] THE RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER. (_Sphyrapicus ruber._) The Red-breasted Sapsucker is a resident of the Pacific Coast, ranging from northern Lower California northward to Southern Alaska. It extends its flight and breeds as far east as the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains. It belongs to the family of Woodpeckers (Picidae). The generic name, Sphyrapicus, is taken from two Greek words that refer to the habits of these birds--sphura, a hammer and pikos, a woodpecker. The specific name, ruber, means red. Like its eastern relative, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius), it punctures trees possibly in order to feed upon the exuding sap or the insects attracted by its flow, yet this bird does not develop this habit to so great an extent as the eastern species, for it will completely girdle a tree with punctures, which at times will cause its death. A direct evidence of this is found in the fact that in localities where the Red-breasted Sapsucker is abundant indications of their work are not usually common. The adult birds are beautifully marked with crimson on the head and breast, while in the young the color is brownish and the yellow of the belly is wanting.