ARIZONA BLUE-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD 327 



spicuous white tips on the outer feathers; perhaps the bluethroats 

 were more in evidence than they appeared to us. They saw us and 

 departed before the ceremony was completed. 



Nesting. — One of our main objectives in Arizona was to find the 

 nest of the blue-throated hummingbird; but all our efforts were in 

 vain, for we never succeeded in finding an occupied nest. We did, 

 however, find some old nests in two entirely different situations. 

 There was an open dancing pavilion, roofed over but open on all 

 four sides, that stood close to the stream. My companion, Frank 

 C. Willard, told me that this hummer had nested under the roof of 

 this building in the past, and he pointed out to me the remains of two 

 nests of previous seasons on a dead branch that extended under the 

 eaves. We saw the hummer near this pavilion several times, but, up 

 to the time that we left, she had not built another nest there. 



We had been told that the blue-throated hiunmingbird had been 

 known to build its nests on the stems of some flowering plants that 

 grow in clusters on the rocks, above the pools or waterfalls, in a 

 narrow rocky gorge, known as "the box," a short distance above our 

 cabin. While passing through this gorge on several occasions we 

 had heard or seen this hummer flying past us, and had looked for its 

 nest in vain. But one day, while examining a large clump of car- 

 dinal monkeyflower {Mimulys cardinalis) growing on a sloping ledge 

 near a little waterfall, we found a last year's nest of this hummer 

 attached to the stem of one of these plants and not over a foot above 

 the ledge. 



George F. Breninger (Childs, 1906a) found and collected a nest 

 and two eggs of this hummer, which came into the collection of 

 John Lewis Childs, who published a colored plate of it in The 

 Warbler. The nest was found on May 29, 1897, in the gorge where 

 we found the nest referred to above. It was attached to some of the 

 taller stems in a large clump of maidenhair ferns, "which grew in 

 the side of a wall of rock in a cut worn by water." It was a large 

 nest, apparently about three inches high and about two inches wide ; 

 it was "composed of oak catkins, green moss and spiders' webs." 



Frank C. Willard (1911) has found several nests of the Arizona 

 hummingbird, of which he writes : 



In July, 1899, I located a nest built In an old Black Phoebe's nest on a rock 

 overhanging a shallow pool. * * * 



Although I made repeated efforts I failed to locate another nest until the 

 season of 1910. I made my headquarters at Berner's ranch in Ramsay Canyon. 



He has a flower and fruit garden, with several small greenhouses for winter 

 use. Hanging from a nail in the roof of one of these was the handle of a lard 

 bucket, and built upon the lower crook was a many-storied hummer's nest, 

 some four inches high. It contained one newly hatched young. The tell-tale 

 "squeaks" of an unseen bird identifled my And and by keeping out of sight, 

 and quiet, I was able to get a good look at the female parent. Later I saw 



