182 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



after spending parts of three days here the writer gave up in despair with the 

 thought that an estimate of 250,000 adults was ridiculously low. On July 18, 1933, 

 another visit to the section disclosed a general area of about forty square miles 

 centering around these sloughs which literally teemed with squalling young 

 Tri-colors and adults hustling for food for the immense aggregation. 



On May 10, 1934, a nesting colony was noted in marshes which extend from 

 the Culver Ranch into the Cross Ranch, four miles east of Norman, Glenn County. 

 About two weeks later, after nesting was under way in the entire marsh, an 

 irrigation company official, practiced in judging land areas, estimated that nesting 

 covered virtually sixty acres. During the nesting period many nest counts were 

 made on sample areas; all averaged close to one nest for every five square feet. 

 Even at one to ten square feet, the nests in this marsh would number about 

 260,000. As the estimated number of nests listed in this report is 200,000, this 

 permits sufficient allowance for any parts of the marsh not so heavily populated. 



Rollo H. Beck wrote to me on May 22, 1944: "In last month have 

 destroyed 850 nests in one farmer's grainfield, and in a small ditch 

 filled with tules; found several spots where two separate nests were 

 placed on same tules. Of interest to me was the grainfield nesting, 

 nests in barley or attached to mustard stalks and barley. Last year 

 10 colonies were all in tules in water." 



Dawson (1923) says of the nests: "The nests, I say, are everywhere, 

 now at middle levels, 2 or 3 feet above the water, where one may 

 peep into them, now overhead where we must thrust in exploratory 

 lingers, now hung perilously close to the water where a change in 

 level may overwhelm them. Now and again they crowd each other, 

 when two or three birds select the same stems. Here are two nests 

 side by side, and here one above another. Here a bird has lashed her 

 foundation too high, and the top will not go on because of a neighbor's 

 foundation." 



Elsewhere (1927), he describes the nest as follows: "Each nest is 

 lashed firmly within a group of upright cattail stems; and an art 

 which anchors an edifice midway of such unencouraging rods is a 

 high art. The sides of the nest are both woven and coiled, but the 

 bottom is coiled only, and that most ingeniously. I have seen a dead 

 cattail leaf five feet long reduced to a single close-set spiral. The 

 body, or matrix, of the nest is made of macerated leaves, or vegetable 

 waste, laid on wet. Occasionally a little mud finds its way into the 

 composition, but this is not essential. And, finally, after the matrix 

 is well dried, a smart lining of coiled grasses is added, and egg-laying 

 begins." 



In the same paper he writes of the zoning system in the colony: 



Nesting commences on schedule and proceeds with the regularity of clockwork. 

 We do not know where the High Council convenes which assigns quarters to the 

 incoming citizens, but we do know that first comers, to the number, it may be, of 

 a thousand, gather in the center of the swamp. Days pass and nothing is done. 

 Then as at a given signal, all fall to work and begin nest-building. This central 

 group, of those who have received building licenses, works thenceforth unremit- 



