42 JVESTS AND EGGS OF BIRDS. 



" puckered to prevent the eggs being rocked out by some too- 

 rude breeze." The OLitsIde is artfully made to resemble the limb 

 upon which the nest is saddled, and so guard against observa- 

 tion, by being coated with 3'ellow, green and gray wood-lichens, 

 firmly pressed into the walls and further kept in place by a net- 

 work of gossamer. The lining is of yellow and white plant- 

 down, lichens and horsehair, often the last alone, or sometimes 

 downy feathers, the quills of which are skilfully thrust into the 

 wall of the nest, so that onl}- the soft tips can be felt. Being 

 no larger than a tea-cup, and looking precisely like a scar on 

 the limb, this nest is not an easy one to find ; but its perfection 

 costs the birds a full week of labor. The eggs are four to six in 

 number, shortly oval in form, somewhat pointed ; white in color, 

 spotted and blotched with varying and blending shades of reddish 

 brown, lilac and slate. The egg varies greatly in the amount 

 of speckling, which, however, is pretty evenly distributed. 

 Blown specimens are frequently faint bluish- or greenish-white. 

 Their average dimensions are .58 by .46. These flycatchers are 

 said to sit fourteen days, but not to rear more than one brood 

 each season if their nest is undisturbed. Mr. Ragsdale notes 

 that half the nests he has met with in Cooke County, Texas, 

 where the bird is abundant, are destroyed before completion, 

 most of them being iotally obliterated. He attributes this to 

 the battles which take place between the flycatchers and some 

 intrusive cow-bird, in the course of which the fragile structure 

 is demolished. It is certain that this nest is a favorite hospice 



24. THE BLACK-HEADED GNATCATCHER. 

 POLIOPTILA MELANURA Lavjrcnce. 



An inhabitant of ^4r/2'C«(7, Soiithcrn Calif ornia and Mex- 

 ico., where it builds its nests among the interlacing tendrils of a 

 vine, or interweaves it with the smaller branches of some pen- 

 dent parasitic plant. They are structures of great beauty and 

 delicacy. The external portion is composed of various blend- 

 ed vegetable materials, fine hempen fibres of plants, strips of del- 

 icate bark, silken fragments of cocoons and downy cotton-like 



