110 HABITS OF THE WREN-TIT 



than its usual scolding cries a succession of slow monotonous 

 whistling notes prolonged with a trill. Dr. J. G. Cooper, who 

 found the bird " common everywhere west of the Sierra Nevada, 

 on dry plains and hillsides covered with chaparral and other 

 shrubby undergrowth ", describes the nest and eggs, which he 

 discovered at San Diego during the last week of April, 1862. 

 The nest was placed in a shrub about three feet from the 

 ground, and was "composed of straws and twigs mixed with 

 feathers, firmly interwoven", lined with grass and hair; the 

 cavity was a little less than two .inches wide, and about as 

 deep. " The eggs were 0.70 x 0.52 inch in size, and pale green- 

 ish blue" in color. 



I have myself never seen this curious bird alive ; and I 

 hesitated to bring it into the present connection. A short 

 notice, however, of the interesting species seemed desirable, 

 and I concluded to introduce it, on the strength of its occur- 

 rence in the country about Fort Tejon, at the western edge of 

 the interior basin particularly since there is no doubt in my 

 own mind that the bird actually inhabits a small part of the 

 Colorado water-shed. It is, however, characteristic of the 

 coast region from the Sacramento Valley to Lower California, 

 and back from the coast to the Sierra Nevada. There is even 

 a record of its probable or possible presence in Colorado Ter- 

 ritory ; but this is so extremely doubtful that I shall not refer 

 to it more explicitly I have learned too much of the " growing 

 apace" of ornithological ill weeds that once take root. For all 

 we know, Chamcea remains a singularly isolated form, so re- 

 stricted in habitat, and so widely separated from former or 

 present allies, that the wonder is how it was ever developed in 

 this place without leaving a trace of its ancestry. 



