COUES'S FLYCATCHER 261 



found generally distributed over all parts of the mountaias ; while I 

 have taken specimens, evidently migrating birds, quite at the base of 

 the range, as late as May 25th, though others were found breeding at 

 an earlier date." 



Nesting. — Mr. Swarth (1904) says: "In the choice of a nesting place 

 they show a marked preference for the conifers, the nest being usually 

 built at a considerable distance from the ground, on some limb afford- 

 ing a wide, uninterrupted outlook, but there again no hard and fast 

 rule can be laid down, as I have seen nests built in maples in the bottom 

 of a canyon, not twenty-five feet above the ground, and nearly hidden 

 by the luxuriant foliage. I have seen birds beginning to build in the 

 middle of IVIay, and eggs can occasionally be found until at least the 

 middle of July." 



We found a pair of Coues's flycatchers building a nest 40 feet from 

 the ground on a horizontal fork of a high branch of a rather small 

 bull pine, on May 12, 1922, in Stoddard Canyon. The birds were still 

 working on the nest on the 26th; my companion Frank Willard col- 

 lected this nest, with the four eggs that it contained, on June 4. He 

 says that the male tried for some time to drive the female back to 

 the nest after he had collected it. ^Ir. Willard's notes contain the data 

 for three other nests found in the same locality; two of these were 

 saddled on horizontal forks of oaks, one 25 and one 15 feet from the 

 ground ; the other Avas 40 feet up and 25 feet out from the trunk near 

 the tip of a long branch of a large spruce, at an altitude of 8,000 feet. 

 I have a set in my collection, taken by K. D. Lusk, at an altitude of 

 7,000 feet in the Chiricahua jSIountains, Ariz., on July 12, 1899 ; the nest 

 was placed 15 feet above gi'ound in a horizontal fork of a sycamore 

 beside a stream. 



There are six nests of this flycatcher in the Thayer collection in 

 Cambridge; four of these had been placed in horizontal forks of 

 pines, at heights ranging from 10 to 38 feet ; one was 30 feet from the 

 ground in a maple; and the other must have been beautifully con- 

 cealed and camouflaged, as it was built 6 feet out from the trunk and 

 35 feet from the ground on a horizontal limb of a red spruce that 

 was heavily covered with large loose lichens and usnea; these lichens 

 had been so thoroughly worked into the exterior of the nest that it 

 must have been almost invisible except from above. 



Coues's flycatcher builds a beautiful nest, very uniform in pattern 

 and in materials used, strongly suggesting a glorified wood pewee's 

 nest. Practically all the nests are built in the horizontal forks of 

 branches, though occasionally one is placed on a horizontal branch 

 where it is partially supported by upright twigs. It is very com- 

 pactly made and firmly plastered to the branch and the prongs of 

 the fork with plenty of cobwebs, so that the center of the nest is often 



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