BIRDS OF KANSAS. 463 



males come into full song; the nests are built, and the comple- 

 ment of eggs laid, usually by the middle of June. During this 

 month, while the females are incubating, the males mount the 

 tops of the bushes and sing continually — indeed, I know of no 

 more assiduous and persistent songster than this little bird is, 

 although his vocal efforts are of an humble sort. His ditty is a 

 simple staff of three notes and a slight trill — nothing like the 

 continuous song of the Chip bird. In places where the birds 

 are plentiful, several males may be in sight at once, each on his 

 own bush clump, while his mate is nesting below. As soon as 

 incubation is over, the habit is entirely changed, and the males 

 become as inconspicuous as their consorts. The pairing season, 

 during which the males may be seen continually chasing the 

 females about in the bushes, is of short duration; and, prelim- 

 inaries adjusted, both birds set to work in earnest at their nest, 

 with such success that it is completed and the eggs laid in a 

 week or two. Most of my nests were taken during the first two 

 weeks in June. In one case, in which I visited a nest daily, I 

 found that an egg was laid each day, till the complement of four 

 eggs was filled. I have not found more than four eggs in a 

 nest, and sometimes only three. They are of a light green 

 color, rather scantily and sharply specked with sienna and other 

 rich shades of brown — sometimes very dark brown. Generally 

 the dotting is chiefly confined to the larger end, with only a 

 speck here and there over the general surface; the dots are 

 sometimes in an area at the butt, sometimes partially confluent 

 and wreathed around it. The eggs measure about .62x.50. 

 The nest is always placed low; I never found one so high as a 

 yard from the ground, and generally took nests within a few 

 inches, in the crotch of a willow or other shrub, or in a tuft of 

 weeds. The nest is inartistically built of fine dried grass stems 

 and the slender weed stalks, with perhaps a few rootlets; it is 

 sometimes lined quite thickly with horse hair, sometimes not, 

 then having instead some very fine grass tops. It varies a good 

 deal in size and shape, according to its situation, but may aver- 

 age about three inches across by two deep, with a cavity two 

 inches wide by one and a half deep. In those cases where I 



