WRENS. 37 



readily available ; but it is oftener built of a variety of materials — 

 any that come handy — sticks, bark-strips, weeds, grasses, moss, 

 hair, wool, &c. The sites selected are quite as various ; usually the 

 nest is built in a rift of rocks, or on the ground beneath some shelv- 

 ing rock. *■'■•■ The eggs seem to run from four to eight or nine to 

 a clutch; «^hey measure from 0.72 to 0.77 in length by 0.60, to 0.66 

 in breadth, averaging about j^x^ ; they are noticeable for their 

 rotundity, and the crystaline purity and smoothness of the shell. 

 The white ground is rather sparingly sprinkled with distinct red- 

 dish-brown dots, usually massed at the large end or wreathed around 

 it.' — CouES, Birds OF THE Colorado Valley, p. 162, 163. 



58a. SALPINCTES OBSOLETES GUADALUPENSIS. 



GUADALUPE ROCK WREN. 



Dr. Coues writes of a variety of Rock Wren which inhabits the 

 island of Guadalupe, ^off the coast of Lower California. It is said 

 " to ingeniously block up the entrance to its nest with an artificial 

 wall built of pebbles, leaving an aperture only just large enough to 

 pass." This, in all probability, alludes to the present species. 



59. CATHERPES MEXICANUS. 



MEXICAN WHITE THROATED WREN. 



( See following Species.) 



59a. CATHERPES MEXICANUS CONSPERSUS. 



WHITE-THROATED WREN. 



"Mr. Sumichrast describes its nestt 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 Mr. J. H, Clark ; it was cup-shaped, not 

 large, and with only a slight depression. The eggs, four in num- 

 ber, were unusually oblong and pointed for eggs of this family, 

 and measured 80 by 60 of an inch, with a crystaline- white ground, 

 profusely covered .with numerous and large blotches of a reddish or 

 cinnamon brown" — Baird, Brewer and Ridgway's N. A. Birds, 

 vol. I, p. 140. 



tThia remark applies to the Mexican race. 



