438 NESTS AND EGGS OF 



fact, in all sorts of curious places, even in bird boxes. Orchards and 

 the shade trees along streets are favorite nesting-sites. The nest is a 

 large, coarse structure, made of twigs, roots, stems, grasses, dry leaves, 

 hair and wool. It is strengthened by a neatly-made cup of clay or 

 mud, which is surrounded by these materials. The typical set of eggs 

 is four, rarely five. They are greenish-blue, unspotted. Very rarely, 

 however, speckled with brown. Average size, 1.16 x .80. 



761a Merula migratoria proplnqua Ridgw. [7^;.] 



'Western Hobin. 



Hab. Western United States, east to and including Rocky Mountains, south into Mexico. 



The general habits, nesting and eggs of this Western form of the 

 Robin are like those of the Eastern species. Mr. Walter E. Bryant 

 notes a pair of these birds that built and reared a brood in a hanging 

 basket suspended from the edge of a veranda at the residence of Mr. 

 H. G. Parker at Carson, Nevada. 



763. Hesperocichla naevia (Gmel.) [9] 



Varied Tlirusli. 



Hab. Western North America, chiefly near the Pacific coast, from California to Behring Strait. Breeds 

 chiefly north of the United States; east casually to New Jersey, Long Island and Massachusetts. 



In various parts of Alaska this is a common breeding bird. A 

 few are known to breed in the spruce forests of Washington Territory, 

 but their breeding grounds are chiefly north of the United States. 

 According to Dr. Brewer, Mr. W. H. Dall furnished the first authentic 

 knowledge concerning the nest and eggs of the Varied Robin as he 

 found them in Alaska. The nest found by him was built in a willow 

 bush, about two feet fropi the ground, and upon the top of a large 

 mass of rubbish lodged there by some previous inundation. It meas- 

 ures six inches in diameter with a depth of two and one-half inches. 

 It has but a very slight depression, apparently not more than half an 

 inch in depth. The original shape of the nest had, however, been 

 somewhat flattened in transportation. The materials of which it was 

 composed were fine dry mosses and lichens impacted together, inter- 

 mingled with fragments of dry stems of grasses. Other nests of the 

 same species were met with in several places between Fort Yukon 

 and Nulato, always on or near a river bank and in low secluded 

 localities. 



A nest of this thrush obtained by Dr. Minor, in Alaska, is a much 

 more finished structure. Its base and periphery are composed of an 

 elaborate basket-work of slender twigs. Within these is an inner 

 nest consisting of an interweaving of fine dry grasses and long gray 

 lichens. The eggs are described as pale greenish-blue, sparingly but 

 distinctly sprinkled and spotted with dark umber-brown , size 1.13 x .80. 



