518 APPENDIX. 



first week of April. He describes it as a shy, active, and restless bird, generally 

 frequenting the extreme tops of the tallest cottonwood-trees near the borders 

 of the watercourses, which, however, are usually dry. There the bird flutters 

 throucvh the dense foliage in search of insects, and is scarcely ever seen for more 

 than an instant at a time. It commences building about the first of June. The 

 nest is suspended from the extremities of the lower branches of an ash, walnut, 

 mesquite, or cottonwood tree, and is exclusively composed of fine wire-like grasses, 

 which are made use of while green and pliable, and sparsely lined with the silky 

 fibres of a species of Asclepias. These grasses are interlaced in such a comjilicated 

 manner as to form, even when dry, a very strong structure. The dimensions 

 of a nest are: Inner diameter, three inches ; inside depth the same ; outside 

 from five and a half to four inches wide and about four deep. The eggs are 

 from two to four in number, usually three, are of a pale bluish-white ground, 

 spotted with dark lilac and umber-brown about the larger end. The largest eggs 

 measure one inch by .64. Captain Bendire adds that he cannot regard this Oriole 

 as a fine singer. Besides a usual chattering note resembling the syllables char- 

 char-char, frequently repeated, it has a call-note something like hui-wit, which is 

 also several times repeated. 



Icterus baltimore (II, 195). Extends its range westward to the Rocky 

 Mountains. Collected in El Paso County, Colorado, by Mr. Aiken. 



Icterus bullockii (II, 199). Extends eastward to Eastern Kansas, where it 

 is not uncommon. (See Snow's Catalogue of the Birds of Kansas, 1873.) 



Corvus cryptoleucus (II, 242). According to Mr. Aiken this species is 

 abundant, and nearly replaces C. carnivorus along the eastern base of the Rocky 

 Mountains, as far north as Cheyenne. 



Captain Bendire found this a resident species in Southern Arizona, and met 

 with two nests at tlie base of the St. Catharine Mountains, near Tucson. One of 

 these contained three, the other four eggs. These he described as very light col- 

 ored, so pale that if mixed with hundreds of others of this family they could be 

 picked out witliout difficulty. Their ground-color is said to be a very pale green, 

 with darker markings running more into lines than spots ; in fact, very few spots 

 were found on either set. The size of the largest was 1.8-5 inches by 1.33, that 

 of the largest 1.70 by 1.19. They were not common in the vicinity of Tucson. 



Cyanura (II, 271). For a special treatment of the races of C. stelleri, see Am. 

 Journ. Science and Arts, January, 1873. 



Cyanocitta californica (II, 298). Dr. Cooper has ascertained that this 

 species does occur on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, but lower down than 

 the region he visited in 1863. He found a few at Verdi, close to the eastern boun- 

 dary-line of California, at about 4,500 feet elevation, in July, 1870. He saw none 

 elsewhere. 



Tyrannus vociferans (II. 327). Captain Bendire writes that this species 

 arrives in the neighborhood of Tucson about the middle of April, but does not 

 commence nesting until the middle of June. All the nests he found were difficult 

 to get at, being generally placed on a branch of a large cottonwood-tree, and at a 

 distance from the trunk. The nest is described as very large for the size of the 



