OREGON JTJNCO 1055 



shallow ditches and concealed by the vegetation. One nest and its 

 surroundings were composed entirely of pine needles. H. T. Bohlman 

 (1903) tells about two nests found in sides of "railroad cuts" near 

 Portland, Oreg. He ^\Tites.• "Both were constructed of an outer 

 layer of coarse grasses, then a thick layer of fuier grasses, and a lining 

 of cow hair. The inner cavity measures two and one-fourth inches 

 across and one and one-foiu:"th inches deep, while the outer measure- 

 ments are two, and two and one-half inches in depth respectively." 

 Bohlman comments that one nest was lined ^^'ith white cow hair, 

 the other vdih black. 



To T. D. Burleigh (1930), juncos are one of the characteristic 

 birds of the scattered stretches of open fir woods of the Puget Sound 

 country: "Here birds were frequently flushed from nests that almost 

 invariably were sunken in the green moss that covered the ground, 

 and protected and concealed by a dead fir limb or, rarely a clump of 

 dead ferns. They were substantially built of weed stems and fine 

 grasses, in one case with green moss intermixed, and lined, sparingly 

 at times, with horse hair." 



Burleigh (1930) found one nest "snugly built in an old rusty tin 

 can lying at the edge of an open field, and twenty feet from the 

 nearest underbrush." Milton S. Ray (1903), F. S. Hanford (1913), 

 and D. I. Shephardson (1917) report similar tin can nests. Joseph 

 Ewan (1936) reports a nest on a rafter in an old hay-filled barn; 

 D. S. DeGroot (1934) and others teU of nests in crevices of rock 

 ledges; Ray (1918) reports a nest built in the corner of an empty box 

 in full Wew of hotel guests passing to and fro; and W. E. Griff ee (1944) 

 tells of nests built on stringers between the joists of wooden barracks 

 with no enclosed foundation. 



S. G. Jewett (1928) found two Oregon junco nests in trees. His 

 unique observations were made on the same day; the nests were 

 about a mile from each other, both in lodgepole pines each about 

 8 feet from the ground. He describes them as "loosely built." 

 W. E. GrifTee (1947) describes a junco nest he discovered in his own 

 back yard in Portland, Oreg. He writes he "was amazed to find it 

 fully 20 feet above ground and 8 or 9 feet out from the trunk on a 

 thick brushy lower branch of a Douglas fir." H. B. Kaeding (1899) 

 notes most nests are built on the ground, but nests in trees and de- 

 serted woodpecker holes have been recorded. 



Concerning the actual nest construction May R. Thayer (1912) 

 writes: "Our first intimation that they were building in our imme- 

 diate vicinity came to us on June 8 [1908], when I noticed the female 

 picking up hairs that Donald, the collie, had scattered on the walk. 

 * * * For two or three days, they busied themselves with the comple- 

 tion of the nest. The actual construction of the nest seemed to fall- 



646-737— 68— pt. 2 30 



