380 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



noticeable when the eggs were fresh. The nest on the U Key was placed in a low 

 bush not over three feet from the ground ; both parents were present and neither 

 exhibited the slightest solicitude for the safety of their offspring. Both were 

 very tame, coming within a foot of our heads as we sat on the ground near the 

 nest. This last mentioned was placed the lowest of any I ever saw and tlie one 

 I mentioned as finding in the scrub ten feet up was by far the highest. The usual 

 distance from the ground is between four and five feet. The nests are seldom 

 fastened securely to the bushes, but are usually laid in the forks formed by 

 the twigs. 



There is one of Mr. Majmard's nests, containing three eggs, in the 

 Thayer collection in Cambridge. This had been placed in the slant- 

 ing forks of a bush and built up fully 4 inches from the fork; it was 

 made of rootlets, vine tendrils, strips of inner bark, and fine grasses, 

 mixed with plenty of wool and pappus clusters; it was lined with 

 finer grass and pappus. 



There are three other nests of the Bahama honeycreeper in the same 

 collection, taken by A. H. Verrill during the first week in May 1904 

 and 1905. One of these was in a bamboo thicket 3 feet from the 

 ground, one 4 feet up in a small bush, and one 6 feet above the earth 

 in a tree. They are all bullcy nests, containing four, five, and six eggs, 

 respectively, and made of smilar materials to those mentioned above, 

 but one contains many dried and skeletonized leaves and dried lichens, 

 the fine, brown flowing stalks of mosses had been used in one, and the 

 third contains the dried fronds of some fern. The largest nest meas- 

 ures 7 by 5 inches in outer diameter. 



Eggs. — The Bahama honeycreeper lays three to six eggs in a set. 

 These are ovate to elongate-ovate and are slightly glossy. The ground 

 color is white, or grayish white, speckled and spotted with shades of 

 "vinaceous-f awn," "Vandyke brown," and "snuff brown." Frequently 

 the eggs are so speckled and clouded with "fawn," "brownish drab," 

 "auburn," or "bay" that the ground color is practically obscured and 

 appears to be "vinaceous-f awn." The markings on all types are more 

 concentrated at the large end ; and on some of the heavily spotted and 

 clouded varieties, a solid cap of "sorghum brown," with a few very 

 tiny scrawls of "warm sepia," may be found. The measurements of 

 40 eggs average 17.1 by 12.8 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four ex- 

 tremes measure 19.0 by 13.1, 17.8 by 14.0, 15.5 by 12.4, and 17.1 by 

 11.4 millimeters. (Harris.) 



Plumages. — Ridgway (1902) describes the juvenal plumage of the 

 Bahama honeycreeper as follows : "Above brownish gray or deep drab- 

 gray, the primaries and rectrices marked with white and (together 

 with secondaries) edged with paler gray as in adults; lower rump 

 olive-yellow, much less distinct and more restricted than the pure 

 yellow patch of adults ; sides of head brownish gray, without any white 

 superciliary stripe or else with this merely indicated; malar region 



