NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 431 



nest is composed principally of hemp-like vegetable fiber mixed with 

 small curled-up leaves of the white sage, Eiiroiia laiiata^ plant-down,- 

 and fragments of spiders' webs. Inside the nest is lined with the 

 same hemp-like fiber, only much finer, and a few feathers. The cavi- 

 ty of the nest is cup-shaped and rather deep. Externally the nest 

 measures 2>^ inches in diameter by 3^ inches in depth. The inner 

 diameter is i >^ inches by i ^ inches in depth. Compared with a nest 

 of Polioptila plumbea Baird, now before me, from Arizona Territory, 

 it seems much better constructed and also somewhat larger. 



" I took three nests of the latter species near Tucson, Arizona, dur- 

 ing the months of May and June, 1872. Two of these were placed in 

 bunches of mistletoe, probably Phoredendron flavescens^ growing on 

 mesquite trees from twelve to twenty feet from the ground ; and one 

 of them is described in the * History of North American Birds,' by 

 Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Volume III, page 502. The third nest 

 was placed in a crotch of a cholla cactus. 



'* The ground-color of the eggs of the Polioptila calif ornica Brews- 

 ter is bright light green, much more pronounced than in the eggs of 

 either P. ccsrulea and P. piumbea^ now before me. They are covered 

 with minute spots of a brownish-red color distributed irregularly over 

 the entire surface of the Q:<yg^ but nowhere so thick as to hide the 

 ground-color. These eggs measure .50 x .45, .58 x .45, .57 x .45, and .57 

 X .44 inch." * 



754. Myadestes townsendii (Aud.) [25.] 



To'wnsend's Solitaire. 



Hab. Western United States, from the Plains to the Pacific. 



So far as I am aware, Mr. Wilbur F. Lamb took the first known 

 eggs of Townsend's Fly-catching Thrush. This was in Summit coun- 

 ty, Colorado, July, 1876, at an altitude of about ten thousand feet. The 

 nest was placed in the upper bank of a miner's ditch near Blue River ; 

 it was partly concealed by overhanging roots, yet rendered conspicuous 

 by the loose, swaying material of which it was composed. Mr. T. M. 

 Trippe found a nest of this species in San Juan county, Colorado, July 

 9, at an altitude of 10500 feet ; it was built in a little cranny in a bank, 

 and contained four eggs in which incubation had just begun. Dr. 

 Coues describes a nest taken by Mr. Wm. G. Smith, of Buffalo Creek, 

 Jefferson county, Colorado. This was found June 18, 1883, and was 

 built in the end of a hollow fallen log; it was about three feet off" the 

 ground and about one foot from the end of the log. The foundation 

 of the nest was a great quantity of trash, bits of sticks, etc., the nest 

 proper being constructed chiefly of pine needles, grasses, and disinte- 



Capt. Chas. E. Bendire, U. S. A. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1887, pp. 549-550. 



