390 BULLETIN 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



diameter by 1% inches in depth, while one taken by Mr. Ridgway, in Parley's 

 Park, Utah, on July 23, 1869, measures only 1% by 1 inch outside measure- 

 ment. The difference in size of the inner cups of these two nests is even 

 more noticeable, the former measuring 1 inch by three-fourths of an inch, the 

 latter three-fourths by one-half of an inch. While the walls of both of these 

 nests are mainly composed of willow or cottonwood down, their outer covering 

 is entirely dissimilar. The outside of the larger one is profusely covered with 

 small bits of lichens, like the nest of the Ruby-throat; the smaller one is 

 decorated with shreds of bark, fine leaves, and dry plant fibers, resembling 

 more the nests of Costa's Hummingbird in this respect. * * * The inner 

 lining appears to be composed entirely of willow or cottonwood down, and none 

 of the specimens before me contain even a single feather. The outer covering 

 or thatching is firmly secured to the walls of the nest with spider webs or silk 

 from cocoons. The majority of the nests of the Broad-tailed Hummingbird 

 are placed on low, horizontal branches of willows, alders, cottonwoods, etc., at 

 no great heights from the ground, or overhanging small mountain streams, 

 while others are saddled on boughs or limbs of pine, fir, spruce, or aspens, 

 from 4 to 15 feet from the ground, rarely higher. Occasionally a nest may be 

 placed on a curled-up piece of bark or on a splinter of a broken limb. 



Robert B, Rockwell tells me that "the broad-tailed hummingbird 

 seems to be the only really common species about Colorado Springs. 

 I have seen it as late as September 18, 1911. In 1923 one built a 

 nest on a small branch of an elm tree overhanging a porch outside of 

 our dining room. The nest was about 7 feet above the porch," He 

 tells in his notes of another nest in a yellow pine tree, 8 feet above 

 ground, and of another that was saddled on a dead limb of a small 

 cottonwood, about 5 feet from the ground. He says (1908), in his 

 paper on the bh-ds of Mesa County, Colo., that it "frequents the 

 timber along the streams from 6000 feet up and raises two broods 

 in a season and possibly three. I found them breeding abundantly 

 on Buzzard Creek at about 8000 and found nests containing fresh 

 eggs, freshly hatched young and fledglings just ready to leave the 

 nest on the same day and within a radius of half a mile. * * * 

 One nest found was built on a root protruding from a bank directly 

 over and within 2 feet of the swift running water of Buzzard Creek." 

 Aiken and Warren (1914) say that "one confiding bird built its nest 

 on the electric light fixture directly before the front door of a house, 

 on a porch where people were continually going and coming, and 

 raised two young." 



R. C. Tate (1926) says that Oklahoma nests that he has examined 

 were made of "rock-moss, lint from cottonwoods and willows, fine 

 willows, fine shreds of thin inner bark from cottonwoods, and fine 

 rootlets of blue-stem and gama grass." 



Frank C. Willard's notes contain the records of six nests in the 

 mountains of southern Arizona, at altitudes ranging from 4,900 to 

 6,000 feet. One nest was 8 feet up in a scrub oak, three were in 



