NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 431 



nest is composed principally of hemp-like vegetable fiber mixed with 

 small curled-up leaves of the white sage, Eurotia lanata, plant-down, 

 and fragments of spiders' webs. Inside the nest is lined with the 

 same hemp-like fiber, only much finer, and a few feathers. The cavi- 

 ty of the nest is cup-shaped and rather deep. Externally the nest 

 measures 2>4 inches in diameter by 3^ inches in depth. The inner 

 diameter is i^ inches by i^ inches in depth. Compared with a nest 

 of Polioptila plumbea BAIRD, now before me, from Arizona Territory, 

 it seems much better constructed and also somewhat larger. 



" I took three nests of the latter species near Tucson, Arizona, dur- 

 ing the months of May and June, 1872. Two of these were placed in 

 bunches of mistletoe, probably Phoredendron flavescens, growing on 

 mesquite trees from twelve to twenty feet from the ground ; and one 

 of them is described in the ' History of North American Birds,' by 

 Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Volume III, page 502. The third nest 

 was placed in a crotch of a cholla cactus. 



" The ground-color of the eggs of the Polioptila californica BREWS- 

 TER is bright light green, much more pronounced than in the eggs of 

 either P. cceridea and P. plumbea^ now before me. They are covered 

 with minute spots of a brownish-red color distributed irregularly over 

 the entire surface of the egg, but nowhere so thick as to hide the 

 ground-color. These eggs measure .50 x .45, .58 x .45, .57 x .45, and .57 



x .44 inch." * 



754. Myadestes townsendii (Aim.) [25.] 



Towuseud's Solitaire. 



Hab. Western United States, from the Plains to the Pacific. 



So far as I am aware, Mr. Wilbur F. Lamb took the first known 

 eggs of Townsend's Fly-catching Thrush. This was in Summit coun- 

 ty, Colorado, July, 1876, at an altitude of about ten thousand feet. The 

 nest was placed in the upper bank of a miner's ditch near Blue River ; 

 it was partly concealed by overhanging roots, yet rendered conspicuous 

 by the loose, swaying material of which it was composed. Mr. T. M. 

 Trippe found a nest of this species in San Juan county, Colorado, July 

 9, at an altitude of 10500 feet ; it was built in a little cranny in a bank, 

 and contained four eggs in which incubation had just begun. Dr. 

 Coues describes a nest taken by Mr. Wm. G. Smith, of Buffalo Creek, 

 Jefferson county, Colorado. This was found June 18, 1883, and was 

 built in the end of a hollow fallen log; it was about three feet off the 

 ground and about one foot from the end of the log. The foundation 

 of the nest was a great quantity of trash, bits of sticks, etc., the nest 

 proper being constructed chiefly of pine needles, grasses, and disinte- 



Capt. Chas. E. Bendire, U. S. A. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1887, pp. 549-550. 



