WESTERN WARBLING VIREO 375 



to the fork from which it hung, and, together with spider webs, 

 were used to hold the cottony substance in phice. The nest was a 

 beautiful object and harmonized so well with its natural surroundings 

 that it would easily escape notice among the glimmering alder leaves. 

 And so much cottony substance had been used on the outside of the nest 

 that in spots it was fully one-half inch in thickness. This nest was 

 neatly lined with very fine shreds of the outer bark from dry weed 

 stalks; and filaments of spider webs were also utilized to bind the 

 edge of the nest to the fork from which it hung." 



Dr. Linsdale (1938) reports four Nevada nests; one Avas 8 feet up 

 in a chokecherry near the base of a rocky cliff at 8,000 feet altitude in 

 a canyon ; and another, found the same day, was 15 feet above ground 

 in an aspen in the same vicinity. Two others were 15 feet above ground 

 in a birch clump and 9 feet up in an aspen, respectively. Frank C. 

 Willard (1908) found a nest in Arizona that was 30 feet from the 

 ground in a sycamore in a canyon. 



Grinnell and Storer (1924) report two nests in the Yosemite Valley ; 

 one was "4I/2 feet above the ground at the forking of two almost leaf- 

 less branches of a coffee berry bush." The other Avas about 12 feet 

 up and 3 feet out from the trunk of a young black oak. Dr. Grinnell 

 (1908) found a nest 6 feet feet from the ground in an apple tree in 

 the San Bernardino Mountains, and several others in cottonwoods, 

 from 6 to 20 feet above ground. 



The best account I can find of the nesting and home of the western 

 warbling vireo is that published by Henry J. Eust (1920), of Coeur 

 d'Alene, Idaho. 



His first nest "was suspended from the fork of a small spiraea bush, 

 five feet from the ground, back about ten feet in dense shrubbery along 

 an old roadway"; this nest was torn down and destroyed when the 

 young were about 8 days old. But he found another nest the following 

 year along the same roadw^ay, and watched the birds building it and 

 rearing their young successfully. He took a number of good photo- 

 graphs of it (pis. 46, 47) . It was 4i/^ feet from the ground in a fork of 

 a small willow, and, when first found, "consisted of several blades of 

 dry grass woven over and under, back and forth across the crotch, 

 the loose ends drooping, with several bits of willow down adhering." 

 He continues : 



In the afternoon of the next day the rim was finished and rounded out in shape 

 to support the completed nest; some of the loose ends were woven in and out, 

 with a few additional dry grass stems, bits of string and willow down, this 

 forming a part of the body of the nest. Two days later, the 27th, the nest was 

 completed on the outside. When visited on the 30th the lining was in place, 

 consisting of dry grass stems interwoven with ten or twelve strands of horse 

 hair. The nest as completed measured as follows: Diameter outside, 2\^2 by 3 

 inches ; length 3 inches ; diameter inside, 1% by 2 inches ; depth 1% inches. 



On dissecting the nest after the young had flown, the following materials were 



