and resolve it into a loose pile of materials? Certainly not less
than an entire day. Do you think that even your skilful fingers,--
unassisted by needles,--could in two days, or in three, weave of
those same materials a nest like that, that would function as did
the original? I doubt it. The materials consist of long strips of
the thin inner bark of trees, short strings, and tiny grass stems
that are long, pliable and tough. Who taught the oriole how to
find and to weave those rare and hard-to-find materials? And how
did it manage all that weaving with its beak only? Let the wise
ones answer, if they can; for I confess that I can not!

Down in Venezuela, in the delta of the Orinoco River, and
elsewhere, lives a black and yellow bird called the giant cacique
(pronounced cay-seek'), which as a nest-builder far surpasses our
oriole. Often the cacique's hanging nest is from four to six feet
long. The oriole builds to escape the red squirrels, but the
cacique has to reckon with the prehensile-tailed monkeys.

Sometimes a dozen caciques will hang their nests in close
proximity to a wasps' nest, as if for additional protection. A
cacique's nest hangs like a grass rope, with a commodious purse at
its lower end, entered by a narrow perpendicular slit a foot or so
above the terminal facilities. It is impossible to achieve one of
these nests without either shooting off the limb to which it
hangs, or felling the tree. If it hangs low enough a charge of
coarse shot usually will cut the limb, but if high, cutting it down
with a rifle bullet is a more serious matter.

[Illustration with caption: HANGING NEST OF THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE
(From the "American Natural History")]