1046 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 2 



located from one to three feet above the ground in shrubs, and five were placed 

 on the branches of spruce trees, where spreading twigs formed a platform, from 

 five to forty feet above the ground. 



The nesting site varies rather considerably indeed for a generally 

 low nesting bird. The conventional site is under a clod, on the sides 

 of a bank, or amid roots of a windfall, but these by no means exhaust 

 the bird's choice. I have found nests directly on, or rather in the 

 ground, depressed into the soil of open meadows until the rim of the 

 nest is even with the ground. Some are concealed from above by 

 grass tufts, some are not. Though I have foimd several nests in 

 bushes and young evergreens, such have not been over 5 feet from 

 the ground. D. J. Nicholson wTote me, however, of finding one 17 

 feet from the ground in the tall sprouts of a locust tree at an elevation 

 of 4,750 feet in the Mt. Pisgah area of North Carolina, and another 

 16 feet up and out on a limb from the trimk of a balsam on Clingman's 

 Dome in the Great Smokies. 



An imusual nest site that vividly illustrates the bird's disregard 

 of people was a nest started in a s\\inging fern basket on our front 

 porch July 7, 1930. The basket hung about a foot from the entrance 

 door that the family used continuously. The bird used a good deal of 

 the coarse threads from a floor mat just to one side of the basket, 

 and often worked at detaching them while people were on the porch 

 a few feet away. The next four consecutive siunmers juncos built 

 and occupied nests on the rafters of our open-front garage. 



The nest is a well made structure, deeply cupped and substantial. 

 It averages 4.5 inches in width, 2.5 inches in inside diameter, and 1.1 

 inches in depth. The materials used in its construction are consist- 

 ently uniform, largely grasses, bark strippings, rootlets, and moss. 

 The lining is quite often horsehair and I have found both gray and 

 white used. At times hair of other animals is used, and now and 

 then evergreen needles. 



Two and occasionally three broods, I believe, are raised in the 

 North Carolina Blue Ridge. Eggs of the first clutch niunber four 

 rarely five; later clutches are smaller, usually three in number. On 

 the time of laying Tanner (1958) comments as follows: 



The laying of the first egg * * * depends on both the advance of the season 

 and the altitude of the nest in the mountains, and there is also variation between 

 different females or pairs in the same area. The earliest first egg date which I 

 know definitely, April 20, was in a warm spring and at a low altitude. The 

 average date of laying the first egg is about eleven days later for each thousand 

 feet increase in altitude. The latest date for the laying of the first egg, of what 

 I am sure was the season's first nest of the pair, was May 31. 



The remaining eggs of the clutch are laid one each day, usually in the morning, 

 until the set is complete. Four eggs is the usual number in the early nests. 

 The female begins incubating with the laying of the next to last egg. While 

 incubating she sits stUl with little or no turning, and will flush from the nest 



