124 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



to our familiar crested flycatcher of the Eastern States, though Ridg- 

 way (1907) says of this and the Mexican crested flycatcher, "color 

 of upper parts much grayer (the pileum browner), gray of throat 

 and chest and yellow of abdomen, etc., much paler, and inner webs 

 of rectrices with a broad stripe of dusky grayish brown next to shaft." 

 It is a bird of western Mexico, southern Arizona, and southwestern 

 New Mexico. 



It is a conspicuous and noisy member of the interesting aggrega- 

 tion of hole-nesting birds that have found congenial nesting sites in 

 the deserted nest holes of the Gila woodpecker and Mearns's gilded 

 flicker. We found this flycatcher fairly common in the region lying 

 east of the Santa Cruz River and south of the Catalina Mountains 

 in southern Arizona. Here the land is flat or slightly rolling, arid, 

 sandy, and stony, even up into the foothills of the mountains. For 

 the most part it is treeless, except for a few scattered paloverdes, 

 low-growing mesquites, and a scanty undergrowth of creosote bushes. 

 But scattered all through it one sees the towering straight or many- 

 branched trunks of the saguaros, or giant cacti, standing like sentinels 

 on the desert plains and on the lower slopes of the foothills. Here 

 and there are scattered clumps of several species of cholla, with 

 flowers of varied colors, an occasional barrel cactus, with its bulky 

 interior filled with moisture for the thirsty traveler, and various low- 

 growing cacti, with flowers of brilliant hues. All these are attractive 

 enough when the desert bursts mto bloom in the spring, but they 

 seem to form a strange habitat for a crested flycatcher, which we in 

 the East have learned to regard as a forest-loving bird. 



Nesting. — In just such places as that described above, the Arizona 

 crested flycatcher comes to build its soft nest in some one of the many 

 vacant holes that the woodpeckers have made in the saguaros. Their 

 neighbors, in addition to the two home-building woodpeckers, may be 

 saguaro screech owls, the tiny elf owls, cactus wrens, desert sparrow 

 hawks, purple martins, or ash-throated flycatchers. Nearly every 

 giant cactus has one or more woodpecker holes in it, and some of the 

 larger ones have half a dozen or more of them, at heights ranging 

 from 15 to 30 feet above ground, though many of them are unoccupied. 



The sap of the saguaro hardens around the inside of the cavity, 

 making an ideal bird box, which holds its shape for a long time. In 

 this cavity the flycatchers make a soft, warm nest of hair, fur, 

 feathers, etc., usually with bits or large pieces of cast-off snakeskin. 

 Cow's hair, often obtained from dead cattle and smelling badly, seems 

 to be one of the principal materials; but I have seen in the nests 

 tufts of badger fur, rabbit fur, the white tail tuft of a cottontail rabbit, 

 a wad of feathers from a white-necked raven, various other feathers, 

 and once a piece of skin from a Texas nighthawk, with a foot and a 



