1890.] Bendire on Pifiilo fnscus mesoleucus: and Piflilo aberti. 2CJ 



with a fair-sized and well-armed party, would have been himself 

 collected sooner or later by one of Chief Cachise's enterprising 

 cut-throats who then roamed over these mountain ranges more 

 or less at their own sweet will. The ornithologist collecting 

 in Arizona at the present day cannot imagine the changes that 

 twenty years have brought about in that country, and it is hard to 

 realize the difficulties under which the earlier explorers labored. 

 It would take too much space to enumerate even a few of these 

 here, but having entered Arizona myself as early as 1857, although 

 I had no means to collect anything then, I am quite competent 

 to judge what risks and discomforts the pioneer naturalists of 

 Arizona, Drs. Coues, Cooper, and Palmer, underwent in the 

 interests of science. Only on my second visit to the Territory 

 in 1872 was I enabled to add a little to our knowledge of the 

 avifauna of that even then still little known region. Fortunately 

 there was a cessation of hostilities on our part, only, however, 

 against the hostile Apaches, for a portion of the year, as peace 

 commissioners had been sent out from Washington to make 

 terms with the hostiles, which enabled me to make a few interest- 

 ing discoveries which I could not have done otherwise. 



I found my first nest of Pipilo fuscus mesoleucus on June 4, 

 1S72 ; it contained two fresh eggs, and was placed in a mesquite 

 bush about four feet from the ground and not particularly well 

 concealed. According to my observations (I examined some 

 seventy nests) by far the greater majority were placed in low mes- 

 quite trees, sometimes close to the trunk, in the forks of limbs, and 

 again well out on a branch, rarely more than eight feet from the 

 ground. An occasional nest was placed in a cholla cactus. 

 None were found directly on the ground. The nest is a large 

 one for the size of the bird, loosely constructed externally. It is 

 composed of weed stalks and coarse, dry grasses, and is lined with 

 fine thread-like rootlets and horse-hair, when the latter is obtain- 

 able. It is an unusually deep nest. One collected by Lieut. 

 H. C. Benson, 4th Cav., U. S. Army, at Fort Huachuca, Ari- 

 zona, Am-il 9, 1887, and now before me, measures outwardly 

 5£ inches across, inner diameter 3 inches, outer depth 3J inches, 

 inner 2 inches. Externally it is principally constructed of the 

 stems and dry blossoms of a species of Gnaphalium, small twigs, 

 leaves, etc. The inner lining consists of the seed-tops of grasses 

 belonging to the genus Fistuca and hemp-like plant fibres. 



