RED-SPOTTED BLUETHROAT 307 



from perches he also has a somewhat pipitlike song flight, which must 

 be reckoned a form of display, in which he rises singing in the air and 

 glides down again with spread wings and tail. 



Nesting. — [Author's note: Only a few North American nests have 

 been reported, all in the vicinity of the Meade River, about 30 miles 

 inland from Barrow, Alaska. Three of these are in the Wilson C. 

 Hanna collection, two being taken on June 18, 1932, and one on June 

 19, 1936, and all containing six eggs each. A set of eggs in the col- 

 lection of Dr. Louis B. Bishop was taken there in July 1928. And 

 there is a set in the Chicago Academy of Sciences, taken in the same 

 locality on June 20, 1932. 



There are two sets of eggs of this species in the Thayer collection in 

 Cambridge. One was taken by Koren, near Nijni Kolymsk in 

 northeastern Siberia on June 14, 1905, from a nest "in a hollow in the 

 ground in a thicket of small willows and heathberry plants." The 

 other came from Tornea, Lapland, evidently the western race, and 

 was taken from a nest among the roots of a bush, on June 23, 1900. 

 The base of the nest consists largely of string, cottony substances, 

 leaves, and very fine twigs or rootlets ; the main nest is made of strips 

 of inner bark, interwoven with grasses, rootlets, and fine twigs, mixed 

 with a little green moss and plant down ; it is lined with cattle or rein- 

 deer hair. Externally it measures 3 inches in diameter and 2% inches 

 in height; the inner cup is about 2 inches wide by 1% deep. 



Henry J. Pearson (1904) mentions two nests of this species found in 

 Russian Lapland. One, found on June 24, "was placed on a bank 

 facing south, and was made of moss outside, well lined with fine grass." 

 The other, found June 29, "was in a clump of grass on the edge of the 

 lake, surrounded in fact by water and only two inches above its sur- 

 face. I expect the water had risen since the nest was made, as it was 

 eight inches above the usual level."] 



Eggs. — [Author's note: Six seems to be the usual number of eggs 

 laid by the red-spotted bluethroat; all the Alaskan sets reported were 

 of this number; Pearson (1904) reported a set of four and a set of 

 seven; and others have said that seven eggs in a set are not unusual. 



The two sets of six eggs each in the Thayer collection are ovate and 

 somewhat glossy. The ground color varies from "tea green" to "deep 

 lichen green," and the eggs are mostly very faintly sprinkled with the 

 finest dots of brownish olive or dull, pale brown; in some eggs the 

 markings are concentrated into a brownish cap at the large end ; some 

 eggs appear almost immaculate. 



Mr. Hanna has sent me the following description of the three sets 

 in his collection: "The eggs are ovate to short-ovate. The shell is 

 close-grained and shows little or no gloss. The uniform ground color 

 is grayish olive. One set is almost without superimposed markings, 



