262 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



unsupported in the space between the prongs. The upper rim is 

 very firmly and smoothly finished, usually forming a nearly or quite 

 perfect circle. In the nests that I have seen the body of the nest is 

 firmly made of fine grasses, fine weed stems, shreds of weed stalks, a 

 few bits of dry leaves, and flowering grass and weed tops. The 

 exterior is profusely decorated, or camouflaged, with large and small 

 pieces of lichens, often selected to match those naturally growing 

 on the branch, in black, gray, or pale green colors, all securely bound 

 on with cobwebs. The deeply hollowed interior is smoothly lined 

 with the finest of bright yellow grasses and the slenderest grass tops. 

 The yellowish-buff interior is sharply defined against the lichen-covered 

 exterior, making a pleasing contrast and a pretty picture. 



The nests that I have measured vary from 4 to 5 inches in outside 

 diameter ; the inside diameter seems to be quite uniformly 2% inches, 

 and the depth of the cavity about an inch and a half; the external 

 height varies from 2 to 3 inches. All the nests that I have seen 

 conform very closely to the same pattern. Samuel B. Ladd (1891) 

 gives the following good description of the composition of a nest: 

 "The body of the nest seems to consist of the web of some spider 

 intermingled with the exuviae of some insect, fragments of insects, 

 and vegetable matter, such as staminate catkins of Quercus emoryi and 

 a pod of HosacMa^ some leaves of Quercus emioryi and Q. undulata. 

 The interior of the nest is made up of grasses, principally of two 

 species of Poa^ also some fragments of a Bontelona and a Stipa.''^ 



Eggs. — Three or four eggs generally constitute the set for Coues's 

 flycatcher. These are ovate and practically lusterless. The eggs that 

 I have seen have a dull white or creamy white ground color, which is 

 sparingly marked, mostly near the larger end, with small spots or 

 dots of different shades of brown, sometimes very dark, sometimes 

 paler and rarely reddish brown, with a few scattering small spots of 

 shades of Quaker drab. Some writers have compared them to eggs 

 of the olive-sided flycatcher or the wood pewee, but I have never seen 

 any that bore the slightest resemblance to either of these. Bendire 

 (1895) says that "the shell is frail and without luster, of a rich cream 

 tint, and is sparingly spotted, principally about the larger end of the 

 egg, with different shades of chestnut, ferruginous, and lavender." 



The measurements of 50 eggs average 21.1 by 15.8 millimeters; 

 the eggs showing the four extremes measure 23.5 by 15.9, 2.17 by 16.9, 

 and 18.8 by 15.0 millimeters. 



Young.— Mr. Swarth (1904) says: "On July 23, 1902, I secured a 

 young bird which had just left the nest but was as yet hardly able to 

 fly, and two weeks later broods of young, attended by the parents could 

 be seen everywhere. After the young had left the nest, a general move- 

 ment toward a lower altitude began, and by the middle of August 



