Almost any tree, or tree-branch, containing the essential hollow, and suitably located, is utilized. Broken branches of high sycamores, seldom more than forty or fifty feet from water, are, according to Audubon, favorite places, while Wilson claims to have met the home of a pair of these birds in a fork composed of branches, and built out of a few rude sticks. In the South, the forsaken retreat of the gray squirrel and the hole of the ivory-billed woodpecker are common nesting-places. Often the entrance to the nest is apparently so small when compared with the bulk of the occupant that it is a matter of surprise to many that she can manage to make her way into it without suffering bodily injuries. But she does, nevertheless, which is an evidence that she either knows how to conform to circumstances, or is a better judge of dimensions than many of the would-be-wise lords of creation. All nests of our finding have been wide enough at their mouths to admit of easy passage, and have been from four to six feet in vertical direction. Soft decayed wood, and a few feathers, doubtless plucked from the breast of the builder, were their only contents. Dry plants, down, and feathers of the wild turkey, wild goose and the common barnyard fowl, have been observed, in addition to the foregoing articles, by other writers. The height of the entrance above the ground varies from fifteen to thirty feet, but probably a less, or even a greater elevation, may sometimes be attained. Wilson speaks of a nest which he observed in an old grotesque white oak, which stood on a slope of one of the banks of the Tuckahoe River, in New Jersey, just twenty yards from the water’s edge, that had been occupied for four consecutive years. At the time of his visit the nest contained thirteen young birds, which the maternal head was engaged in carrying down to the water to give them, perhaps, their first experience in the art of swimming. So carefully, and yet so adroitly and quickly, did she perform this seemingly difficult task, that she was less than ten minutes in its accomplishment. Although the male usually stands sentry while the processes of laying and sitting are going on, and signals the approach of enemies by a peculiar cry which has been likened to the crowing of a young cock--œ-ēēk! œ-ēēk!--yet from the silence of one writer upon the subject we infer that the duty of rearing the rather numerous family is left to the mother, while he--her friend and consequential partner, as though disdaining such ignoble and degrading work, because of its slavish character--is off with his gay companions, disporting themselves in mid-air, or trimming, while perched upon some sheltering bough, their rich and varied plumage. So intent, however, was the mother-bird upon the faithful discharge of her home-duties, that she heeded not the stately sloop, then nearly completed, as it lay upon the stocks close-by, with its hull looming up within twelve feet of her home, darkened with the