66 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



bird is a rather common breeder in the muskeg and sand-hill country 

 north of Fort Assiniboine, with its growth of spruce, tamarack, and 

 pines, and its abundant crop of blueberries, cranberries, and kinni- 

 kinnick berries. It nests in spruce and tamarack trees in the muskegs, 

 usually at low elevations. It also nests in pines growing on the high 

 gi'ound. The nests are placed near the top of the tall, slim pines and 

 are so difficult to secure that it is necessary quite often to lash two or 

 more pines together, or pull the tree with the nest into a larger pine 

 nearby. Three nests taken in pines were at heights of 40, 50, and 60 

 feet. The highest nest of 11 taken in muskegs was 18 feet up and the 

 lowest 4 feet ; the rest ranged from 8 to 16 feet up. The birds also nest 

 in the wide-branching pines growing in open situations, and in this 

 case the nests are saddled on the horizontal limbs well out from the 

 trunk. 



"The nests are rather flat, and made on the outside of tamarack or 

 spruce twigs, grass, usnea moss, and cocoons ; they are lined with a lit- 

 tle fine grass, usnea moss, cocoons, and plant cotton, or with tamarack 

 leaves, feathers, or pine needles ; some of this lining is, of course, not 

 present in every nest. 



"Some pairs breed by themselves, but quite often two or more nests 

 are in the same muskeg at no great distance from each other. On 

 one trip to the muskegs, the birds were entirely absent from their 

 usual haunts. I attribute this to lack of the usual crop of berries, the 

 blossoms evidently being caught in a hard frost the previous season. 

 These birds are also great flycatchers, and, in another season which was 

 very cold and windy and little insect life available, they were not 

 breeding at the usual time and only one nest was found. Few nests 

 are found as compared with the numbers of birds present. They do 

 not breed in the poplar woods around Belvedere." 



Wilson C. Hanna has sent me the data for two sets of eggs of the 

 Bohemian waxwing, taken by him at Atlin Lake, British Columbia, on 

 July 14, 1931. Both nests were in balsam firs, 14 feet above the 

 ground ; one was at a fork in the main trunk of a small fir, and the other 

 was on a downward-sloping limb against the trunk. The materials 

 used in the construction of the nests were not different from those 

 mentioned above. The larger nest measured 6 by 7 inches in outside 

 diameter by 2.7 inches in depth; the inner cavity was 3.25 inches in 

 diameter and 1.5 inches deep. (PI. 7.) 



Mr. Swarth's (1922) eight Telegraph Creek nests were all in lodge- 

 pole pines; one nest was 25 feet, one 10, and one 15 feet from the 

 ground ; the others were only 6 or 7 feet up. All the nests but one 

 were on small limbs against the trunk; this nest, found June 24, "was in 

 a lodgepole pine of larger size than most in this locality, in the fork of 

 one of the larger branches, about three feet from the trunk. Both 

 birds were building here at 1 p. m. At 4 p. m. both birds were seen 



