AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 101 



nest is concerned. They are composed of vegetable down, small 

 strips of dull colored bark, small leaves, seed pods, dull gray lichens 

 and tiny downy feathers held together by spider web. I have yet to 

 see my first nest of this species which has any decorations, although 

 most of the hummers do. I do find however, that quite often the nest 

 will contain one or two small soft feathers as a lining and I have one 

 set in my collection where the feathers are so plentiful that the eggs 

 are scarcely visable in their downy bed. 



For a nesting site, the birds of course adapt themselves to surround- 

 ings. If it is a narrow dry wash, one will generally find the nest on a 

 bush or small tree overhanging the bed of the wash, but sometimes, 

 you may find it on a sage bush on the rocky side of the wash, on some 

 small cliff or clearing. Very often the bird will choose a cactus plant 

 or a seed pod of the Yucca should any happen to be in the vicinity. 

 Should you find a colony in a eucalyptus or gum, as we commonly call 

 them, look about waist high among the dead leaves of the lower 

 branches and you will locate it nine times out of ten. 



About the first of October we find our pretty little summer visitor 

 has departed for his winter home and we will see no more of him until 

 the winter is gone and spring is once more with us. 



A STRANGE VISITOR. 



I'.y IlAERY H. Dunn. 



Ordinarily the bush-tit is one of the shyest of all of California's birds 

 except when met with in its breeding resorts in the oak groves of 

 the hills, but I had an experience with a pair of these interesting little 

 fellows some months ago which is quite different from anything which 

 I had heard of them before and which I believe, illustrates a new trait 

 in their character. 



At the home of my father-in-law, in the heart of a populous resi- 

 dence section of Los Angeles — a city, by the way, of more than 

 150,000 souls — there is an old garden, covering a space equal to two 

 average city lots and grown up to stately palms, ivy-screened pines 

 and rose trees of varying ages. Here always is bud and blossom and 

 all things green; and here, too, as might be imagined, come many of 

 the city dwellers among the birds. The linnets, miserable yet amus- 

 ing pests that they are, are always here, nesting in every available 

 corner of tree and house cornice. The English sparrows have not 

 come yet, but when they do I look for trouble for the house finches in 

 short order. Some strange power has held the dreaded sparrows north 

 of the Tehachepi mountains on this coast, but they are in San Francis- 



