104 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



the latter half of April, as a rule. They are usually first noticed 

 as small companies of males, which perch on the tops of trees and 

 make frequent, seemingly aimless flights. This would suggest some 

 type of courtship activity, except that few females are seen at that 

 time. At no time during the season, in fact, are the females nearly 

 as much in evidence as the males; unless the former are actually much 

 fewer in numbers, they are comparatively quiet and inconspicuous in 

 their habits. 



Nesting. — On the deserts nesting begins 2 to 3 months earlier than 

 on the coastal slope. At Palm Springs, according to M. French Gil- 

 man (1903), "it would seem that most of the young are hatched in 

 March and April and that in some instances nest building must begin 

 in the latter part of February." Dr. Grinnell (1914) found both eggs 

 and young in April in the Lower Colorado Valley. West of the moun- 

 tains, on the other hand, nesting begins during the latter part of May, 

 while June witnesses by far the greatest portion of this activity, which 

 seems to end in July, with but one brood raised. It has been surmised 

 that a first nesting might take place on the desert and a second in 

 the coastal region, but Mr. Gilman continues : "Possibly some of the 

 birds rear two broods a year, but from the fact that some adult birds 

 fail to pair and nest in this vicinity [Banning], I am inclined to 

 think that but one brood is raised. Probably those hatched in March 

 on the desert return there to nest the following March; while those 

 hatched in the San Gorgonio pass, in June and July, nest there the 

 following summer." Dr. Alden H. Miller (1933) doubts that any 

 coastward migration occurs after the early desert nesting period, re- 

 marking : "In my experience I have been unable to detect any general 

 exodus of breeding Phainopeplas from the deserts even in May when 

 adults and young are common in these regions." 



In the desert portion of the phainopepla's breeding range, nests 

 have been reported in mesquites, cottonwoods, hackberries, and wil- 

 lows, for the most part. In coastal California, sycamores, oaks, and 

 orange trees are frequently used, together with many other trees and 

 tall shrubs. Near the Papago Indian Reservation in southern Ari- 

 zona, Herbert W. Brandt (MS.) says "it preferred for its nesting tree 

 the densely foliaged hackberry, where an abundance of concealment 

 is offered for its comparatively small, well camouflaged nest. Tlie 

 latter is saddled on a small fork near the outer margin of the foliage, 

 usually in the middle third of the tree. In the drier areas small 

 mesquites may be occupied, especially if the tree contains a dense 

 clump of mistletoe. Then the bird builds down in the center of this 

 common parasite, mounting its home astraddle of the supporting 

 limb." In orange trees about 10 to 15 feet high the nests are placed 

 in the upper third of the tree, in the outer foliage but usually well 

 concealed from an observer on the ground. Twenty-one nests at 



