118 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part i 



action and the male again flew to her and mounted her as the two 

 fluttered lower into the stems of mustard out of view. 



Nesting. — One of the earhest descriptions of a nest of this species is 

 that given by Audubon (1841). He states that the "nest, which is 

 usually placed in the willows along the margins of the streams, is com- 

 posed of small sticks, fine grasses and cow or buffalo hair." J. G. 

 Cooper (1870) describes the nest as "built in a bush not more than 

 three or four feet above the ground, formed of fibrous roots, strips 

 of bark and grass with a lining of plant down or hairs, and securely 

 bound to surrounding branches." J. Grinnell and T. I. Storer (1924) 

 state that the nests "are usually ensconced in low growths along 

 canon bottoms in situations near which the adult birds spend most 

 of their time." A nest found in Yosemite Valley on June 17, 1915, 

 was described as follows: 



It was 18 inches above the ground in the crotch of a small chokecherry growing 

 in a rather sparse stand of the same sort of bush. The nest was rather thick 

 walled, not tightly woven, and its exterior was composed of dried and weathered 

 grass and plant stems of the previous season's growth. A few leaves of the 

 cherry growing on the small branches upon which the nest had been built were 

 incorporated into the surface of the structure. The inner portion of this nest 

 was made of fine rounded grass stems, while the cup was lined with horsehair 

 rather loosely placed. The outside dimensions were, height 3 inches, diameter 

 4 inches; the cup was about 2 inches across and nearly the same in depth. Within 

 were four pale blue eggs in which incubation had just commenced. 



Other descriptions recorded in the literature give much the same 

 picture. The nests were usually found from about IK to 4 feet from 

 the ground in shrubby growths. Specific locations mentioned include 

 thick wiUow clumps, tangles of rose bushes, low thick bushes such as 

 wild rose, currant, and gooseberry, chaparral thickets, small pines, 

 willows, willows and manzanita, twigs of scrub oak, poison oak, wild or 

 domesticated berry vines, fork of a shoot off the base of a cottonwood, 

 brake ferns, stalks of weeds, and thistle stands. In southern Cali- 

 fornia, W. L. Dawson (1923) reports the broadleafed sage or mugwort 

 {Artemesia heterophylla) as the favored location for nests. In 1920, 

 in Santa Barbara, 14 of the 19 nests he found were in pure Artemesai 

 heterophylla along streams or on half-shaded hillsides where it grew 

 3 to 4 feet tall, 2 were in mixed stands, 2 in poison oak, and 1 in a 

 blackberry tangle. 



The outside of the cup is regularly described as made up of coarsely 

 woven dried grass stems, usually the leafy portion, and the lining as 

 of fine grasses or long hair. 



A few reports describe nests at higher elevations. J. K. Jensen 

 (1923) describes a nest he found in Santa Fe County, N. Mex., placed 

 "8 feet up in a bunch of willows on the river bank above Santa Fe." 



