140 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



as piled up thick and high. They were darting from rock to rock and 

 creeping among the crevices with great activity, constantly repeating their 

 peculiar and singular note. The great rapidity of their motions rendered 

 it difficult to procure a /specimen. He did not observe this bird anywhere 

 else. 



Their occurrence equally in such wild and desolate regions and in the midst 

 of crowded cities indicates that the abundance of their food in either place, 

 and not the absence or presence of man, determines this choice of residence. 

 When first observed they were supposed to nest exclusively in deep and in- 

 accessible crevices of rocks, where they were not likely to be traced. Mr. 

 H. E. Dresser afterwards met with its nest and eggs in Western Texas, though 

 he gives no description of either. He found this species rather common near 

 San Antonio, where it remained to breed. One pair frequented a printing- 

 office at that place, an old half-ruined building, where their familiar habits 

 made them great favorites with the workmen, who informed him that the 

 previous spring they had built a nest and reared their young in an old wall 

 close by, and that they became very tame. At Dr. Heermann's rancho on 

 the Medina he procured the eggs of this bird, as well as those of the 

 Louisiana and Bewick's Wren, by nailing up cigar-boxes, with holes cut in 

 front, wherever these birds were likely to build. 



Mr. Sumichrast describes its nest^ as very skilfully wrought with spiders' 

 webs, and built in the crevices of old walls, or in the interstices between' the 

 tiles under the roofs of the houses. A nest with four eggs, supposed to be 

 those of this species, was obtained in Western Texas by ]\Ir. J. H. Clark ; it 

 was cup-shaped, not large, and with only a slight depression. The eggs, 

 four in number, were unusually oblong and pointed for eggs of this family, 

 and measured .80 by .60 of an inch, with a crystalline-white ground, pro- 

 fusely covered with numerous and large blotches of a reddish or cinnamon 

 brown. 



So far as the observations of Mr. Eidgway enabled him to notice this bird, 

 he found it much less common than the Salpindes ohsoktus, and inhabiting 

 only the most secluded and rocky recesses of the mountains.- Its common 

 note of alarm is described as a peculiarly ringing dink. It has a remark- 

 ably odd and indescribably singular chant, utterly unlike anything else Mr. 

 Eidgway ever heard. This consisted of a series of detached whistles, be- 

 ginning in a high fine key, every note clear, smooth, and of equal length, 

 each in succession being a degree lower than tlie preceding one, and only 

 ending when the bottom of the scale is reached. The tone is solt, rich, 

 and silvery, resembling somewhat the whistling of the Cardinal Gros- 

 beak. 



It was often seen to fly nearly perpendicularly up the face of a rocky wall, 

 and was also noticed to cling to the roof of a cave with all the facility of a 

 true Creeper. 



1 This remark applies to the Mexican race. 



