SAY'S PHOEBfi 167 



Say's phoebe is a bird of the open country, the prairie ranches, 

 the sagebrush plains, the badlands, the dry, barren foothills, and 

 the borders of the deserts, where it can forage widely over the stunted 

 vegetation, or perch on some low bush or tall weed stalk to watch for its 

 insect prey. But it is also found in the mouths of canyons or 

 rocky ravines, perched on some commanding boulder as a watchtower. 

 It has no special fondness for watercourses, or for rich agricultural 

 lands, and is seldom seen in heavily timbered regions. As the 

 deeply shaded retreats are more favored by the somber-hued black 

 phoebe, so are the open, sunny places more suited to this sandy-colored 

 species; perhaps each is less conspicuous in its normal habitat. 



Nesting. — I made my acquaintance with Say's phoebe in south- 

 western Saskatchewan, where we located five pairs of these birds 

 about the ranches in 1905 and 1906. A nest was found, on May 30, 

 1905, on a rafter under a bridge, but we could not reach it. Another 

 nest was discovered on a shelf under the eaves of a station house; 

 it held two fresh eggs on June 5. A nest examined on June 10, 1905, 

 was built on a shelf under the roof of a cattle shed; there was a 

 foundation of mud, on which was constructed a pretty nest of soft, 

 fine grasses, lined with cow's hair and woolly substances. Other 

 nests were observed in Saskatchewan, and in 1922 in Arizona, all 

 of which were placed on or in deserted ranch buildings. The above 

 locations seem to furnish the favorite nesting sites for this phoebe, 

 but it also nests in a variety of other situations. 



Major Bendire (1895) says that at Fort Lapwai, Idaho, "they gen- 

 erally arrived during the third week in March, the males preceding the 

 females about a week, and nest repairing or building commenced 

 about the latter part of this month. I have taken a full set of eggs, 

 containing small embryos, on April 17, 1871. Here they nested 

 mostly under the eaves of outhouses and stables ; but one pair selected 

 the plate or rail over the main door of my quarters, and another 

 a corner on the hospital porch. In this vicinity I also found a pair 

 occupying an old Cliff Swallow's nest attached to an overhanging 

 ledge of rock in Soldiers' Canyon, on the road to Lewiston, Idaho, 

 and another in a very unusual position in the same canyon, in an old 

 Robin's nest, placed in a syringa bush, about 4 feet from the ground." 

 He says further : 



Besides the various localities already mentioned in which Say's Phoebe has 

 been found nesting, burrows of Bank Swallows are also occasionally occupied. 

 Ordinarily mud is not used in the construction of their nests; which are rather 

 flat structures ; the base usually consists of weed stems, dry grasses, moss, plant 

 fibers of different kinds, wool, empty cocoons, spider webs and hair, the inner 

 lining being generally composed of wool and hair alone. A well-preserved nest, 

 now before me, from the Crooked Falls of the Missouri, Montana, taken by 

 Mr. R. S. Williams, June 3, 18S9, measures S'l; inches in outer diameter by 2^4 



