370 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Nesting. — The nests of the plumbeous gnatcatcher are placed in 

 low trees or small bushes at no great height from the ground, much like 

 those of the black-tailed gnatcatcher. There are two nests of the 

 former in the Thayer collection in Cambridge, quite similar in con- 

 struction, but very different in dimensions. One taken by W. W. 

 Brown in Sonora on April 30, 1905, measures l}{ inches in height, 

 2 inches in outer diameter, 1% in inside diameter, and 1 inch in 

 inner depth; it was in a mesquite. The other, a much larger nest, 

 was taken from an Atriplex bush on the desert near Phoenix, Ariz., 

 by G. F. Brenninger on April 10, 1901 ; it measures 2% inches in height, 

 2% in outside and 1% in inside diameter, and was hollowed to a depth 

 of IK inches. Both nests are very neatly made of various grayish 

 fibers, compactly woven, and are lined with pappus and other plant 

 down; they are firmly bound with spider web, but no lichens have been 

 used for outside decoration. Each nest held five eggs. 



A nest taken by Frank C. Willard near Tombstone, Ariz., on April 

 22, 1897, is described in his notes as 3% feet up in a small bush, in a 

 fork and supported by various twigs; it was made of fine bark strips 

 and grass and was lined with fine grass and cactus fiber, with a few 

 small feathers woven in. A nest found by Van Tyne and Sutton 

 (1937) in Brewster County, Tex., on April 14, 1935, was "situated 

 about three feet from the ground in a thickly-leaved thorn bush that 

 was growing under a huge cottonwood." Mrs. Bailey (1928) mentions 

 a nest near Terlingua, Tex., in a fouquieria (ocotillo) bush. 



J. Stuart Rowley writes to me: "I have found these birds to be 

 very touchy about the inspection of their nests before the eggs are 

 deposited. Many nests which I have located in the CoachellaValley 

 of California in the process of construction were examined without 

 being actually touched by hand, and upon returning in a week or 

 ten days, were found to be utterly destroyed and deserted. One 

 female sat on her eggs so closely that she was approached slowly 

 and forcibly removed from the nest by being grasped by the bill." 



Eggs. — The plumbeous gnatcatcher lays three to five eggs to the 

 set, but four is decidedly the commonest number. The eggs of all 

 the gnatcatchers are practically indistinguishable, though there is 

 perhaps a tendency to be less heavily marked in eggs of this sub- 

 species. The eggs are ovate or short-ovate and have little or no 

 gloss. The ground color in museum specimens is very pale blue, 

 bluish white, or nearly pure white; they are somewhat brighter, 

 greenish blue when fresh in the nest. They are usually rather spar- 

 ingly and more or less evenly covered with small spots or fine dots 

 of reddish browns; sometimes there are a few very small blotches 

 of various darker browns; and sometimes the markings are some- 

 what concentrated in an imperfect ring about the large end. Very 



