28 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



the most available material — coal, hematite, quartz, or glass beads, even as men use 

 clapboards, shingles, slates, or tiles. 



In looking at the hills it always appears that we can easily gather a handful of 

 the roofing material, but when we try, it is not so. It needs some little force to de- 

 tach the particles. They are indeed a roof; they shed the water, so as to prevent the 

 softer material of the building below from being washed away; and we still think 

 that the brightest materials within reach are selected from some relation to the dis- 

 tribution of heat. 



ADDITIONS TO THE CATALOGUE OF KANSAS BIRDS. 



BY N. S. GOSS, TOPEKA. 



Since the publication of my Catalogue of the Birds of Kansas, in 1883, the follow- 

 ing additions have been made, and the same will appear in the new work, which 

 awaits the receipt of "The American Ornithologist Union Check List of North Amer- 

 ican Birds," now in the hands of the printer, as I desire to follow its classification 

 and nomenclature. 



The three letters, "B.," "R.," and "C," each followed by a number, stand respect- 

 ively for Prof. Spencer F.Baird, Catalogue of 1858; Prof. Robert Ridgway, Catalogue 

 of 1880; and Dr. Elliott Coues, Check List of 1882. 



Mekula MiGBATORiA PKOPiNQUA. B. — . R. 7a. C. 2. Western Robin. A rare visit 

 ant in western Kansas. October 12, 1883, I killed two of the birds out of a flock of 

 seven, at Wallace, Kansas. 



Thbyomanes bewioki leuoogasteb. B. — . R. 616. C. 72. Texan Bewick Wren. 

 Resident; not uncommon in southwestern Kansas. Nests in deserted woodpecker 

 holes, hollow logs, or any nook it may fancy; composed of sticks, roots, straws, and 

 grasses, and lined with fur and a few downy feathers; quite bulky, generally filling 

 the space, but in no case, I think, roofed over. Measurements of five eggs, taken at 

 Corpus Christi, Texas, May 9, 1882: .63x.50; .63x.50; .63x..50; .63x.49; .62x.49; white, 

 speckled with light and dark shades of reddish brown; thickest around large end; in 

 form, oval. 



IcTEEiA viBENS LONGioAUDA. B. 177. R. 123a. C. 145. Long-tailed Chat. A 

 summer resident in the western part of the State; not uncommon. In habits and 

 actions like the yellow-breasted, but note and song slightly different. The birds were 

 reported by Prof. F. H. Snow, in vol. 6, page 38, Transactions of the Kansas Academy of 

 Science, as "Taken along the Smoky Hill river, in western Kansas, by S. W. Williston, 

 in May, 1877;" but by oversight omitted from my first Catalogue. Attention was im- 

 mediately called to the same. (See Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, vol. 8, 

 page 227.) June 2, 188.5, 1 shot two of the birds on Crooked creek, in Meade county, 

 and saw several others. 



ViBEO ATEiCAPiLi.uH. B. 247. R. 142. C. 185, Black-capped Vireo. Summer 

 resident in the gypsum hills in southwestern Kansas. The habits of the birds are 

 but little known. On the 11th of May, 1885, I found the birds building a nest near 

 the head of a deep canon; suspended from the forks of a small elm tree, about five 

 feet from the ground, hemispherical in shape, and composed of broken fragments of 

 bleached leaves, with here and there an occasional spider's cocoon, interwoven with 

 and fastened to the twigs with fibrous strippings, threads from plants, and the webs 

 of spiders, and lined with fine stems from weeds and grasses; above, it was screened 

 from sight by the thick foliage of the trees, but beneath, for quite a distance, there 

 was nothing to hide it from view. The material of which it was made, however, so 



