246  -Habits of Palmer’s Thrasher. Boe Re) 
course, many exceptional nests. Some remarkable for the oddity 
of their construction, others for their bulkiness and still others for 
the flimsy manner in which they are put together. Have many 
records of such; a few instances, however, will suffice to show the 
peculiar ideas of the birds when they depart from their usual seven 
by ten building. One nest was built on the ruins of three others 
and probably represented as many successive broods, and gave the 
interior of the cholla the appearance of having been solidly filled 
in with dead sticks. Exterior diameter of the nest 20 inches, depth 
36 inches, cavity across the top 4% inches, bottom 3 inches, depth 
6 inches, but lined only about 4 inches up with baling rope, hog 
bristles and grass. A second had an external diameter of 14 inches, © 
depth 12 inches, interior diameter top of cavity 5 inches, bottom 2 
inches and depth 9 inches, but lined with grass and feathers for two 
inches only, the other seven inches being naked sticks. The pecu- 
liarity of another was that the bird in leaving the nest went through 
a well built piece of cribbing rather more than ten inches deep, which 
stood at an angle of about 70 degrees with the top of the nest. The 
sticks forming the cribbing were from six to eight inches long and 
straight, the aperture was about four and one-half inches in the 
clear, being rather longer one way than the other. One edge of 
the cribbing lay solidly on the nest, the opposite side being open 
_ sufficiently to admit the body of the bird, giving the cribbing the 
appearance of having at some time been tipped from the perpen- 
dicular. I broke sufficient of the cactus burs away to expose the 
open side of the nest, then secreted myself to watch events. Both 
birds soon returned to the nest, but becoming alarmed again left 
apparently for good, but in the course of half an hour one again came 
back and was presently followed by the other. After a general in- 
_ spection of the premises the female went on the nest, going in under 
the open edge of the cribbing, but on being approached left the 
nest by going up through the cribbing as she did when first dis- 
turbed. For a third time I saw her make her entrance and exit as 
described. The nest contained three slightly incubated eggs. © In 
_ the spring of 1889 I noted several nests made almost entirely of 
_ flowering weeds. This came from the nature of the vegetation in 
the immediate vicinity of the cholla belt in which the n 
placed. 
-There appears to be no fixed time for the opening of the hesting 
ests were 
