BIRDS OF THE ARID PLAIN 97 



and his mate for a nesting place. In a crotch the gray 

 cottage was set, containing three callow babies and one 

 beautifully mottled egg. 



In another fork of the same small tree a pair of king- 

 birds the same species as our well-known eastern bee- 

 martins had built their nest, in the downy cup of 

 which lay four eggs similarly decorated with brown 

 spots. The birds now all circled overhead and joined 

 in an earnest plea with me not to destroy their homes 

 and little ones, and I hurriedly climbed down from the 

 tree to relieve their agitation, stopping only a moment 

 to examine the twine plaited into the felted nests of the 

 kingbirds. The willow sapling contained also the nest 

 of a turtle dove. 



" If there are three nests in this small tree, there may 

 be a large number in the cluster of trees beyond the 

 swell about a mile away," I mused, and forthwith made 

 haste to go to the place indicated. I was not disap- 

 pointed. Had the effort been made, I am sure two 

 score of nests might have been found in these trees, for 

 they were liberally decorated with bird cots and ham- 

 mocks. Most of these were kingbirds 1 and Arkansas 

 flycatchers 1 nests, but there were others as well. On 

 one small limb there were four of the dangling nests of 

 Bullock's orioles, one of them fresh, the rest more or 

 less weather beaten, proving that this bird had been 

 rearing broods here for a number of seasons. 



7 



