NESTING-TIME 



is commonly placed in a bird-box or in some out-of-the-way 

 corner of a woodshed or barn. The little fellows lumber up 

 their homes with a great mass of sticks, but always arrange a 

 soft, feathery spot for their numerous heavily speckled, brown 

 eggs. The red-shafted flicker, like all the woodpeckers, digs 

 a deep hole in a tree trunk, usually choosing a rotten limb for 

 the purpose, and its eggs are always pure white. One lazy 

 pair that I discovered had appropriated a hollow in an oak 

 limb, which had been tenanted for a number of years by a pair 

 of screech-owls. Nuttall's sparrow builds its nest in a low 

 bush or cypress hedge, and its pale greenish eggs are speckled 

 with brown. During the mating season I have heard the male 

 bird utter a curious note, somewhat between a trill and a low- 

 toned rattle. It was accompanied by a quivering of the wings, 

 and evidently meant for a love-song, although without any of 

 the sweetness of the bird's habitual strain. 



The western lark-finch builds her nest during the latter 

 part of April, placing it, as a rule, in a low bush or tree, and 

 laying some four or five white eggs scrawled with dark brown 

 lines. The house-finch, which has been carrying on an ani- 

 mated courtship for some time past, begins to breed at about 

 the same period, or perhaps a trifle earlier. The nest is placed 

 in vines about houses, among the garden trees or bushes; and 

 the eggs, usually four in number, but rarely increased to seven, 

 are pale bluish green with fine dots of black. It is strange that 

 a bird which passes most of the winter with us should not nest 

 earlier, but they evidently plan to finish the family cares just 

 when the fruit ripens, so that the young can be initiated into 

 the mysteries of robbing orchards. 



By the twenty-fifth of April the warbling vireo and the 



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