346 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The song of the male gnatcatcher, even at the peak of his spring 

 animation, is scarcely louder than a whisper, and it is interesting to 

 note the opinion of our ablest interpreter of small-bird actions, Mrs. 

 Margaret Morse Nice (1932), who finds that the male of this species, 

 unlike louder-voiced birds, "does not sing to proclaim his territory; 

 perhaps the spee which is constantly given by both birds serves this 

 purpose." 



Nesting. — More than with most species of small birds, the attention 

 and interest of the observer center about the nesting habits of the 

 blue-gray gnatcatcher because of the great beauty of its nest. This 

 nest should be even better known than its miniature counterpart, 

 the nest of the ruby-throated hummingbird, for by virtue of its 

 larger size and consequent better visibility it can be found much the 

 more readily of the two — yet it seems to have been entirely overlooked 

 by the general public and is known only to ornithologists. 



The general situation of the nest in the extremes of the breeding 

 range of the species is decidedly different. In the southern end of 

 the range nests can be found almost everywhere that trees grow — from 

 the residential sections of the cities to the heart of the great river 

 swamps — but farther north they occur principally along watercourses 

 and in timbered swamp areas. 



The height of the nest above ground varies from a few feet to 70 

 or 80. By far the greater number — those seen by human observers, 

 at any rate — are less than 25 feet up; but this may not represent true 

 distribution in height for, as G. A. Petrides (MS.) points out, "the 

 noisiness and lack of suspicion of the birds about the nest probably 

 enabled the low ones to be located more easily." I suspect that the 

 reported heights of the very high nests were estimated rather than 

 measured, but there are dependable figures available for many low 

 ones. I have found some of these low nests myself: one just 4 feet 

 from the ground near the end of a low-sweeping branch of a pecan 

 tree; another within camera tripod reach of the ground (not more 

 than 5 feet up) in a small lemon tree; and several that were between 

 5 and 7 feet up in small scrub oaks in open pine woods. Angus 

 McKinnon (1908) mentioned one in northern Florida that was "in a 

 small oak only about three and one-half feet from the ground." The 

 lowest figure of all is given in a recent letter from R. A. Hallman of 

 Panama City, Fla., who describes a "typical Gnatcatcher nest, placed 

 in the upright fork of a small scrub oak bush", which was "by actual 

 measurement 38 inches * * * from the ground to tbe top of 

 the nest." 



The nest is usually saddled on a horizontal limb 1 to 2 inches in 

 diameter — occasionally on a larger one — but it is often placed in a 

 fork formed by an upright branch and a horizontal or slanting one, the 



