birds seem to like to return to the same trees—some of the older elms and maples are regularly occupied every summer as a matter of course.
There is another fact which strikes one in looking at these nests about the village: the birds of different feathers show a very marked preference for building in maples. It is true these trees are more numerous than others about our streets, but there are also elms, locusts, and sumachs mingled with them, enough, at least, to decide the question very clearly. This afternoon we counted the nests in the different trees as we passed them, with a view to this particular point, and the result was as follows: the first we came to were in a clump of young trees of various kinds, and here we found nine nests, one in a locust, the other eight in maples. Then following the street with trees irregularly planted on either side, a few here, a few there, we counted forty-nine nests, all of which were in maples, although several elms and locusts were mingled with these; frequently there were several nests in the same maple. Next we found one in an elm; then fourteen more in maples, and successively as follows: one in a yellow willow; eleven in maples; six in a row of old elms regularly inhabited every season, and as usual, an oriole nest among these; one in a lilac-bush; one in a mountain-ash; eleven in maples; one in an elm; one in a locust; six in maples; one in a balm of Gilead; two in lilac-bushes; two in elms, one of them an oriole nest, and ten in maples. Such was the state of things in the principal streets through which we passed, making in all one hundred and twenty-seven nests, and of these, eighteen were in various kinds of trees; the remaining one hundred and nine were in maples.
