WESTERN HEPATIC TANAGER 493 



Dr. Coues (1878) gives the following account of the introduction of 

 this species to our fauna: 



During Capt. L. Sitgreaves's expedition down the Zuni and Colorado Rivers 

 * * * Dr. S. W. Woodhouse observed this beautiful Tanager in the San Francisco 

 Mountains, and secured a f ull-plumaged male, adding to the then recognized fauna 

 of the United States a species long before described by Mr. Swainson as a bird of 

 Mexico. In 1858, Baird recorded a second specimen from Fort Thorn, New 

 Mexico; and, in 1866, I wrote of the bird as a summer resident in the vicinity of 

 Fort Whipple, Arizona, where it arrives during the latter part of April. * * * 



Meantime, however, in 1S73, Mr. Henshaw had been busy with birds in Arizona, 

 and had taken a female specimen at Camp Apache, Arizona. * * * There this 

 Tanager was not rare; perhaps half a dozen individuals were seen in the course of 

 one afternoon, in a grove of oaks that skirted some pine woods. 



In 1922, we found hepatic tanagers fairly common in the Huachuca 

 Mountains, in Arizona, nesting in the tall yellow pines in the upper 

 parts of the canyons, above 5,000 feet and near the lower limit of the 

 heavy pine timber. 



In the Chiricahua Mountains, Ariz., they were seen mostly in the 

 pines, but sometimes in neighboring oaks. 



Harry S. Swarth (1904) says of its status in the Huachuca Moun- 

 tains: "A fairly common summer resident, generally distributed over 

 the mountains during migration, but in the breeding season restricted 

 more to the canyons between 5,000 and 7,500 feet. In 1902 the first 

 arrival was noted on April 11th, and the following year on April 16th; 

 about the middle of May they were quite abundant in the higher pine 

 regions, going in flocks of eight or ten, feeding in the tree tops and but 

 seldom descending to the ground." 



Nesting. — On May 26, 1922, we collected a set of three eggs and a 

 pretty nest of the hepatic tanager in Stoddard Canyon, a branch of 

 Ramsey Canyon at about 7,000 feet, in the Huachuca Mountains. 

 The nest was about 50 feet from the ground and about 12 feet out from 

 the trunk, in a fork near the end of a horizontal branch of a tall yellow 

 pine. It was suspended by its edges between the two prongs of the 

 fork. It was made of green grass, green and gray weed stems, flower 

 stalks and blossoms, and was neatly lined with finer dry and green 

 grasses. My companion Frank C. Willard made a difficult climb with 

 the use of ropes to secure it; he cut off the branch, near the nest, which 

 was photographed near the ground. In my collection is another set of 

 four eggs, taken by Virgil W. Owen in the same region on May 14, 

 1907; the nest was 18 feet up and 12 feet out near the end of a pine 

 limb. 



After I left Arizona, Frank C. Willard collected a nest and two eggs 

 of the hepatic tanager in Miller Canyon, on June 15, 1922. The nest 

 was placed at the tip of a branch of a large sycamore, 25 feet above 

 ground. 



