MEXICAN EVENING GROSBEAK 253 



While spending a couple of days here among the pines at the summit, we found 

 the flocks of grosbeaks making their rendezvous at Bear Wallow Spring, the 

 only spring in the vicinity which had not gone dry. Ruby-crowned Kinglets 

 were also present in considerable numbers, tho more often heard than seen. 



The Kinglets seemed to be nesting and while looking for them we saw a pair 

 of Grosbeaks fighting a Long-crested Jay wliich they presently drove away. 

 The female Grosbeak promptly disappeared in the top of an immense fir tree 

 where Howard's sharp eyes soon located the nest. We collected the set of well 

 incubated eggs the day following. The nest was eighty-six feet from the ground 

 and twenty feet out from the trunk of the tree, near the tip of a horizontal branch. 



Willard^comments : "This was my first experience with one of 

 our rarest birds * * *." 



On July 1 of that same year, O. W. Howard found a nest with three 

 eggs in an outer fork of a pine tree at 9,000 feet. In these same 

 mountains on June 1, 1937, C. L. and P. H. Field collected a nest of 

 twigs, lined with moss, also containing three eggs, at the end of a 

 12"foot limb in a pine tree about 50 feet from the ground. J. B. 

 Hurley, whose collection contains the set, "WTites me: "The bird sat 

 very tight and almost had to be pushed off the nest. The eggs had 

 been incubated about a week." 



Mr. Bent (MS.) writes: "We found the Mexican evening gros- 

 beak fairly common in the coniferous forests of the Huachuca Moun- 

 tains, Ariz., at elevations from 7,000 to 8,000 feet; they were very 

 restless, often making long flights; we spent some time following 

 them about, but did not succeed in finding a nest. After I had left 

 for home, my companion, F. C Willard, collected a set of three 

 heavily incubated eggs on June 5, 1922." Willard (1910) published 

 the account of another find: 



On May 30 [1908] while returning from a long tramp on the west slope of the 

 mountains, I heard the unmistakable note of a Hesperiphona and saw a pair fly 

 into a large pine tree which stood by itself in the bed of the canyon. They soon 

 flew down into the brush, to the ground, and then back to the pine, the male 

 following the female. I watched them make several trips and was then compelled 

 to leave them and hurry on toward my distant camp. They were building, the 

 female carrying all the nesting material. I made a note to return for the set in 

 ten days. * * * 



On June 11 Willard returned, and found the nest "well concealed 

 among the thick branches of needles at the tip of a branch fifty-five 

 feet up. It was twenty feet out from the trunk and the female would 

 not leave, tho I jarred the nest a good deal in roping the branch up 

 to make the nest accessible. She did not leave until I almost touched 

 her. The position of the nest was such that I could not photograph 

 it. It was composed of twigs on the outside, then grass and rootlets 

 with finer material for a lining." 



Eggs. — Willard (1910) writes of the eggs of the Mexican evening 

 grosbeak: "The eggs are strikingly similar to those of the Redwinged 



