94 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



about twenty feet; but extremes of six and fifty feet were noticed. In the 

 lower country where various thorny trees are common along watercourses, a 

 frequent site is in a maze of thorns ten or twelve feet up, usually within a 

 few feet of, or even placed directly on, a wasp's nest. In marshes or lakes 

 the crotch of a dead tree is used probably more often than any other situation. 

 Vine tangles and clumps of parasitic growth are also occupied. 



The nest is a large structure resembling an oversized nest of the cactus 

 wren. It is built chiefly of dead grass and any other soft material at hand, 

 such as rags, plant fiber, and feathers ; the cup in the interior is rather shallow 

 and of well-packed and smoothed-down grass stems. A nest collected at San 

 Salvador on March 2S, 1912, measured 18 inches long by 10 inches wide by 

 8 inches high. The cavity was 7 inches long by .5 inches wide and 5 inches 

 high, the shallow nest cup itself taking up the entire floor. The entrance was 

 on the side and pointed slightly downward to prevent rain from beating 

 directly into the nest chamber. Most nests are a little more round (less purse- 

 shaped) than this one, but all are very similar in type. 



The nest described above is the hirgest of which we have any 

 record. One that I brought home from Brownsville measured 

 14 by 10 inches externally, and one in the Ralph collection iii Wash- 

 ington is nearly IS^/o inches long. Major Bendire (1895) says, of 

 three sets of eggs in this collection, taken in Cameron County, Tex. : 

 "Two of these nests were located in a thicket of huisache trees 

 {Acacm faj'nesiana) , about 10 feet from the ground; the other in a 

 large bunch of Spanish moss, pending from the limb of a large tree, 

 about 14 feet up. The last named is now in the collection. The 

 nest proper is an unusually bulky structure, composed principally 

 of gray Spanish moss, dry weed stems, pieces of vines, and swamp 

 grasses, and lined with finer materials of the same kinds. * * * 

 The other nests were lined with wool, feathers, plant down and 

 Spanish moss." 



Dr. Herbert Friedmann (1925) observed two nests in the vicinity 

 of Brownsville, Tex. ; one "was high up in a tall tree and all around 

 it were bunches of Spanish moss, but none of the moss was actually 

 on or suspended from the nest." The other "was built on top of 

 an old nest of a Mexican Cormorant in a dead tree standing in shallow 

 water." There are two nests in the Thayer collection in Cambridge, 

 taken in British Honduras; these are great, nearly globular bundles 

 of similar materials to those mentioned above, measuring 12 inches 

 qr more in diameter; one was 30 feet from the ground in a pine 

 tree, and the other was 15 feet up on the top of a pine stub. Four 

 sets of eggs in my collection came from similar large globular nests, 

 having the entrance on the side. 



Egfgfs. — Two to five eggs are laid to a set by the Derby flycatcher, 

 but four seems to be the commonest number. Most of the eggs are 

 ovate, but some are short-ovate and some elongate-ovate; the shell 

 is smooth and only slightly glossy. The ground color is pale creamy 



