130 DESCRIPTION OF THE VERDIN ITS NEST 



$ 9 : Upper parts ashy ; under parts, dull whitish ; wings and tail fuscous r 

 with hoary edgings. Whole head yellow. Lesser wing-coverts rich chest- 

 nut-red. Bill blackish-plumbeous; feet plumbeous. Length, 4 inches or 

 rather more ; wing, 2 or rather less; tail, lf-2^. 



Young: No yellow on head, nor chestnut on the wing. Above, brownish- 

 gray, including the head ; below, whitish. Bill pale below. 



Before the young has attained the distinctive markings of the species, it is 

 an obscure object, superficially resembling a Psaltripanis or a female Polio- 

 ptila. The generic characters, however, will suffice for its recognition. The 

 shape of the bill is peculiar. In its extreme acuteness, it resembles 

 that of a Helminthophaga, but it is stouter at the base, and, in fact, to com- 

 pare a very small thing'with a large one, looks curiously similar to the bill 

 of an Oriole (Icterus), though the culmen is a little curved. 



Specimens vary much as usual in the shade of the ash, sometimes quite 

 pure, in other cases showing an olivaceous or brownish cast. The yellow of 

 the head extends further on the throat than on the crown. It is generally, 

 in adult birds, rich and pure, but is frequently found dull and greenish ; 

 again, in highly plurnaged specimens, it may be intensified into rich 

 brownish-orange, like that on the head of some of the tropical conspecies of 

 Dendrceca cestiva. The chestnut on the wing often assumes a rich hajniatitic 

 tint. Specimens differ to an unusual degree in the length of the tail. Thus, 

 one of two examples before me as I write has this member half an inch 

 longer than it is in the other. 



I SHALL claim the reader's indulgence to present one more 

 bird supposed to belong to the numerous family of the Tit- 

 mice. Like the last species noticed, the Yerdin is an architect 

 of extraordinary ability, and the history of its nidification 

 should be as conspicuous an item in its biography as the nests 

 themselves are in those localities where the birds are abundant. 

 At Cape Saint Lucas, according to Mr. Xantus, Verdins are the 

 most numerous of all the birds which nest there ; and nearly 

 half of the eggs he collected in the summer of 1859 were those 

 of this kind more than a hundred in all. The nest is de- 

 scribed as a large globular mass of twigs, lined with down and 

 feathers, having the entrance on one side, near the bottom. 

 This singular structure is suspended from the extremity of a 

 branch of some algarobia, acacia or mimosa, at a varying 

 height sometimes only two or three feet from the ground, 

 sometimes much higher. In the Colorado and Mojave Eiver 

 Valleys, Dr. Cooper observed many nests, one of which he de- 

 scribes with particularity : " On the 10th of March, I found a 

 pair building, first forming a wall nearly spherical in out- 

 line, out of the thorny twigs of the Algarobia (in which tree 

 the nest is usually built), then lining it with softer twigs, 

 down, leaves of plants, and feathers, covering the outside with 



