PALMER'S THRASHER 391 



fence, and the other followed at a respectful distance, singing a little, 

 sotto voce. They were constantly in company after this, having 

 little pursuits and 'tiffs,' and the male, after two weeks of silence, 

 sang oftener and with greater force than before." On the IGtli they 

 started gathering nesting material, but they went about it in an "easy 

 and desultory fashion." Wlien he left the ranch on March 9, no eggs 

 had been laid, though the female had been seen on the nest repeatedly. 



Nesting. — All the nests we found, with one exception, were in choUas, 

 3 to 5 feet above ground ; one was in that dense woolly cholla Ojnmtia 

 bigelovii, the most thickly branched and most densely covered with 

 vicious, barbed spines of all the chollas ; how the birds can pick their 

 way into it and out again is a mystery. In one nest, we were sur- 

 prised to find three eggs of Gambel's quail. The only nest that was 

 not in a cholla was placed 5 feet from the ground between the three 

 branches of a soapweed yucca. The nests were all made of coarse and 

 fine thorny twigs, rather loosely laid, and were lined with fine grasses 

 and in some cases with a little horsehair. Sometimes there were one 

 or more old nests in the same cholla with the new one; M. French 

 Gilman (1909) shows a photograph of a cholla only 5 feet high that 

 had been a favorite nesting site, for it contained five old cactus wrens' 

 nests and four old nests and one new nest of Palmer's thrasher. W. L. 

 Dawson (1923) states that his son counted as many as 14 old nests, 

 or their remnants, in one bush. 



We were not the only ones to find eggs of Gambel's quail in the 

 old nests of Palmer's thrasher ; Mr. Gilman ( 1909 ) reports a nest that 

 held 13 eggs of this quail; and F. C. Willard (1923) found a quail 

 sitting on a set of 17 eggs, and shows a photograph of the nest and eggs. 



In this same paper Mr. Willard states that he saw a Palmer's 

 thrasher fly from a hole 15 feet up in a large sycamore, where he found 

 a nest full of young thrashers. 



All observers seem to agree that the favorite nesting sites of Palm- 

 er's thrasher are in chollas. Mr. Gilman (1909) says : 



Of 27 nests found, 11 were in the cholla ; 7 in the jujube, about as spiny as 

 any cactus ; 4 were in mistletoe of niesquite and Cottonwood ; 2 in Lycium, 2 in 

 mesquite, and 1 in a clematis vine trailing over a shrub. The average distance 

 from the ground was QV2 feet, and the extremes were 2l^ feet and 10 feet. * * * 

 The nest is a bulky affair but well built. The nest proper is 3 or 4 inches deep, 

 inside measurement, and above this is a superstructure or rim from 2 to 3 

 inches high. Several nests seen measured over 6 inches deep. Eather coarse 

 twigs are used in the construction and the lining is mostly of rootlets, though 

 some fine bark, hair or feathers may also be seen in some of the nests. The 

 bird is not too proud to use a foundation already laid, as three nests were found 

 built right on top of old Cactus Wrens' nests. 



Herbert Brown (1892) refers to the thorny protection of the thrash- 

 er's nest, probably in Opuntia higelovii, that exceedingly bristling 

 cholla, as — 



