BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER 347 



lower branch furnishing the foundation and the upright lending side 

 support. An interesting variation was reported by J. J. Murray 

 (1934), who described a nest near Lexington, Va., that "was not 

 saddled on a limb, but set between [sic] three small forks of an upright 

 crotch, in the manner of the nests of the Yellow Warbler and Red- 

 start." 



An attempt to compile from the literature a list of the trees selected 

 by the gnatcatcher for nesting sites resulted in a collection that reads 

 like a catalog of the silviflora of eastern North America. It seems 

 that this species is willing to use any tree in its habitat that provides 

 limbs of the right size and conformation. In the North, where the 

 bird is uncommon or rare, no generalization as to preference can be 

 hazarded. In the South, where it is common to abundant, some 

 local tendencies are noted but these vary widely in different sections. 

 A. T. Wayne (1910) found that, in coastal South Carolina, the gnat- 

 catcher prefers the live oak (Quercus virginiana) "because nesting 

 material is plentiful." S. A. Grimes (1928), writing from Jackson- 

 ville, Fla., stated that "oddly, or not, the pine is the tree most com- 

 monly chosen for the nest site." In his experience "the pines (at 

 least two varieties) have been selected * * * oftener than all 

 other trees combined." That choice could hardly have been influ- 

 enced by availability of nesting material. In extreme western Florida 

 and southern Alabama I have found more nests in scrub oaks (prin- 

 cipally Quercus catesbaei and Q. cinerea) growing in open pine woods 

 than in any other trees, and I have never seen a nest in a pine. Loca- 

 tion in a tree with lichen-covered bark provides the ultimate in 

 concealment for a lichen-covered nest, but this correlation does not 

 seem to be a factor in the choice of a nest site. The preference for 

 pines in the Jacksonville area, as cited by Grimes, is a case in point, 

 and I have seen nests in citrus trees, pecan trees, and cypresses where 

 little or no lichen growth was present. Yet the nest, even in other 

 than its optimum surroundings, is always difficult to see and is seldom 

 found except as "given away" by its owners. 



If it were possible to extract a composite or average of all the 

 published descriptions of the nest of the gnatcatcher — and the word- 

 ing of most of them is monotonously similar — the result would be 

 something like this: A beautiful, cup-shaped nest, compactly built of 

 plant down and similar materials bound together with insect silk and 

 spider web and covered externally with bits of lichen. Materials 

 listed seem to include every kind of soft plant fiber found in the 

 region where the subject nest was located. Many writers use the 

 general terms "plant down" and "fleecy plant substances," but a 

 few particularize with "sycamore fuzz," "leaf down from the under 

 surfaces of leaves," "dandelion and thistle down," and "dried bios- 



