526 HISTORY OF TUB 



In regard to their nesting habits I will say, that on the 9th 

 of May, 1877, I found, in the timber near Neosho Falls, Kan- 

 sas, a nest of this bird (a pendent one, as all Yireos' nests are) 

 attached to branches of a very small horizontal limb of a large 

 hickory tree, about twenty feet from the ground, and ten feet 

 below the limbs that formed the top of the tree. In the forks 

 of the tree the Cooper's Hawks were nesting, and I discovered 

 the Yireo and its nest in watching the Hawks or rather the 

 man I had hired to climb the tree to the Hawks' nest. The 

 little bird at first flew off, but on his near approach returned 

 and suffered him to bend the limb toward the tree and cover 

 her with his hand on the nest. The twig was quickly broken, 

 and the bird and nest lowered by a line in a small covered 

 basket, taken to collect the eggs of the Hawk. Such manifes- 

 tations of courage and love, so rare and exceptional, touched 

 me to the heart, and it was hard to make up my mind to rob 

 and kill the bird and her mate, scolding in the treetop. I can 

 only offer in extenuation that they were the first I had ever met 

 with in the State, and the strong desire to have them in my 

 collection. The nest was made of and fastened to the limb 

 with silk-like threads and bits of cotton from plants, fastened 

 together by saliva, and partly covered or dotted over with lichen, 

 and lined with small stems of weeds and grass. The beautiful 

 nest was in plain sight, there being nothing near to hide it from 

 view. It contained three eggs and also one of the Cowbird 

 (Molothus ater). One of the eggs was broken by the bird in 

 her struggle to escape from the collector's grasp while in the 

 nest. The color of the eggs was pure white, with a few scat- 

 tering small spots of reddish brown toward the larger end. 

 They each measure .79x.58. Four taken from another nest (a 

 full set) measure: .78x.57, .80x.58, .79x.58, .78x.57. 



I have since noticed these birds in the woodlands on several 

 occasions, and on the 18th of May, 1883, while strolling along 

 the south bank of the Kansas River, near Topeka, in the timber 

 skirting the stream, I had the pleasure to find a pair of them 

 building a nest in a honey locust, about sixteen feet from the 

 ground, and eight feet from the body of the tree. The nest 



