Vo, 'i?if XY ] Mousley, Breeding of the Migrant Shrike. 35 



been found at such an extraordinary height as thirty feet; the 

 other author being the late Ora W. Knight, who in his ' Birds of 

 Maine' 1908, p. 471, gives a specific instance of a nest having been 

 found near Bangor in May, 1896, in the forks of a balsam fir tree 

 sixteen feet from the ground. After reading these two accounts 

 the whole thing seemed to become perfectly clear, and I could 

 see the nest in my mind's eye in that solitary fir tree by the road- 

 side and at a great elevation too, and that no doubt was the reason 

 why the birds kept leading me away from it in the afternoon. On 

 the following morning I visited the site again and secreting myself, 

 had the satisfaction, after waiting half an hour, of seeing one of 

 the birds with building material enter a dense portion of the fir 

 tree very near the top. This was on April 30, but it was not until 

 May 10 that I climbed to the nest (which could not be seen from 

 the ground) and found the female sitting on a set of five eggs, 

 in a most beautiful and symmetrical nest, which was built in some 

 forks close to the trunk, and at the record height of thirty-four feet 

 above the ground. The foundation of the nest consisted of fir 

 twigs, rootlets, string and that favorite material of most birds 

 here, the stalks and flower heads of the pearly everlasting. The 

 lining was formed of wool, plant down, and a good supply of 

 feathers, and the dimensions were as follows, viz. : outside diameter 

 6, inside 2f inches; outside depth 4|, inside 2| inches. 



The eggs were finely and evenly spotted all over, the average 

 size being 1.02 X .73, and these I took, more especially as I wanted 

 to try and solve the problem as to why the birds had selected this 

 abnormal site. Was it hereditary, or merely a case of environ- 

 ment? If the former, then the birds at their second venture ought 

 by rights to select some equally high elevation, not necessarily 

 in a fir, but in some other tree; but if the latter was the case then 

 one of the apple trees or bushes close at hand ought to be used, 

 as birds seldom or never build again in the same tree, directly after 

 being robbed of their first set of eggs, and therefore would not make 

 use of the fir tree again. Now it must be borne in mind that at 

 the time of nesting the apple trees and bushes were not in leaf, 

 but by accident in the midst of them there stood this solitary fir 

 with excellent cover. Is it not reasonable then to suppose that 

 the birds seeing this, took advantage of their environment, and 



