470 V. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



five to thirty-five feet from the ground and were all at the outer end 

 of limbs of large Douglas firs. All were alike in construction, being 

 compactly built of fir twigs and rootlets, lined with rootlets and a few 

 horse hairs. The female was incubating on the first nest and would 

 not flush and finally had to be lifted from the nest by hand." 



S. F. Rathbun records in his notes a nest found near Seattle that 

 was in an unusual situation: "It was but ten feet above the ground, 

 being placed on one of the lower limbs of a small fir growing by the 

 side of a well-used path leading to a house surrounded by trees. 

 The nest was directly over the path, but three feet from a small 

 electric light attached to the trunk of the tree. Being so well built 

 into the small twigs growing from the place of attachment, the nest 

 was hardly discernible from beneath and was found by seeing the 

 female alight on the limb and fail to appear." 



Near Fort Klamath, Oreg., Dr. J. C. Merrill (1888) found the 

 nests usually in pines or firs, but one "was in a young aspen about 

 six feet from the ground." 



W. L. Dawson (1923) says that, in California, the nest is usually 

 placed on "some horizontal branch of fir or pine, from six to fifty 

 feet high, and from three to twenty feet out. * * * 



"The nest is quite a substantial affair though rather roughly put 

 together, of fir twigs, rootlets, and moss, with a more or less heavy 

 lining of horse- or cow-hair, and other soft substances." 



I have a set in my collection, taken by Chester Barlow in El Dorado 

 County, Calif., from a nest 40 feet up on the limb of a black oak, 

 and another, taken by Virgil W. Owen in Los Angeles County, from 

 a nest 30 feet up in the top of a live oak. In some notes received a 

 long time ago from Owen he states that, in the Chiricahua Moun- 

 tains, Ariz., the nests are usually in pine trees, but that he "has 

 examined several in sycamore trees." 



One of the two Arizona nests found by Willard referred to above, 

 was only 15 feet from the ground in a small fir tree; the other was 

 65 feet up, near the end of a 30-foot limb of a large pine tree (pi. 30). 

 Claude T. Barnes (MS.) found a nest in a canyon near Salt Lake 

 City, Utah, that was "placed on the fork of a horizontal limb of a 

 mountain balsam (Abies lasiocarpa) ," about 12 feet above his head. 



Eggs. — The western tanager lays from three to five eggs to a set, 

 perhaps most often three in the southern portions of its range. In 

 15 sets taken by Owen in southern Arizona, 10 contained three eggs 

 and only five were sets of four. They are ovate in shape, with some 

 tendency toward short ovate, and are moderately glossy. The fol- 

 lowing description is taken from notes sent to me by William George 

 F. Harris. The ground color may be "pale Nile blue," "bluish 

 glaucous," "deep bluish glaucous," or "Etain blue." The eggs are 



