XANTUS'S BECARD 7 



and pull the sides together again after the eggs are removed. [The 

 data slip gives the outside diameter of this nest as 14 inches and the 

 outside depth as 12 inches, making a nearly globular structure.] 



"The nesting cavity proper is always placed in the lower half of the 

 ball, and is then of very modest dimensions — about the size of the 

 doubled fists placed together. The lining invariably contains broken 

 fragments of soft, dry husks, which, in ensemble, act as a cushion 

 in which the eggs are more or less imbedded. The nests, since they 

 depend from the very tips of the branches, are sometimes subjected 

 to violent thrashing by the wind, yet I have never found a broken 

 egg or lost any through rough handling. 



"The Xantus becard almost invariably forms one member of a 

 colony whose nests are under the protection of a pair of champion 

 kingbirds {Tyrannus crassirostris) , usually in the very tree occupied 

 by the kingbirds. In this instance, however, the sapling containing 

 the becard's nest stood at one side in the shadow of a spreading higuera 

 tree, which contained, besides the nest of the kingbird, those of two 

 others of its wards, the Giraud flycatcher {Myiozetetes texensis 

 texetisis) and the scarlet-headed oriole {IcteriLs pustulatus)y 



Mr. van Rossem (Dickey and van Rossem, 1938) does not mention 

 the kingbird association but says: "It seems to be the invariable 

 custom of this species to swing its nests close to the nests of the three 

 common, breeding species of Ictei'us^ namely, gularis, sclaten^ and 

 pectoralis.'^'' 



About the time that the 1931 Check-list was going to press, or at 

 least too late for the committee to consider it, Mr. van Rossem (1930) 

 described and named a new northern race of this species, which he 

 called Platypsaris aglaiae richmondi. He says that the adult males 

 are "slightly paler and very much grayer with no buffy or brownish 

 tones"; and in the adult females, the under parts are '■'very much 

 paler than in alhiventris.^^ The range extends from Sonora, and per- 

 haps Chihuahua, northward into southern Arizona. The record 

 specimen from Arizona, now in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 

 compares favorably with other specimens from Sonora and Chihuahua 

 but is only very slightly paler than w^hat few specimens of alhlventris 

 we have from more southern States in Mexico. So, if this new sub- 

 species proves to be recognizable in nomenclature, we have no nesting 

 records for the race that belongs on our list. 



Dr. Frank M. Chapman (1898) says that this species and its home 

 are well known at Jalapa, Mexico, and that its nest "is some fifteen 

 inches long and about eight in width, with an entrance at one side 

 near the middle. It is a remarkable structure, composed largely of 

 coarse weed-stalks and grasses, in part covered with fresh gi-een 

 mosses, the walls of the cavity being lined with mud. These nests 



