32 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 
found five eggs in a set. The nest sites vary from 30 inches to 15 feet from the ground, 
in the majority of cases within easy reach. With one exception deciduous? trees are chosen, 
mostly small ones. The nest is placed close to the stem with rare exceptions. As a 
rule very little attempt is made at concealment. In the immediate vicinity of some creek, 
small stream, spring or inwash is the chosen locality. The nests vary in bulk and density. 
They are quickly constructed. The materials used are those found near by the site and 
therefore from force of circumstances consist of mosses, rotten wood, grass and other 
plant stems, coarse plant stems or twigs for the outside and fine grasses, moss, horse 
hair and fine roots for the lining. The middle structure is manipulated in a damp state. 
One or two of the materials designated above may enter into the nest’s construction to 
the almost entire exclusion of the others. There is a seeming carelessness in this species 
with reference to its nest and eggs. A careful watch and guard as with other birds is 
not theirs. Even when the young are hatched out they are not prompt in the defense 
of them. I have stood by the nest of the callow birds for half an hour before the female 
seemed to know it, but realizing danger, a proper alarm and daring was by no means 
wanting. From this want of vigilance no doubt the jays destroy many eggs and young. 
One if not both of the deserted nests sent? was I have no doubt the work of those pests, 
but whether before or after desertion I have no way of knowing. ... . It stays in the 
vicinity of the home haunt until October, when it retraces its short flight as silently and 
unobtrusively as it came. It is not seen coming and going as is swainsoni, slightly up 
and down the gulches from and to the valley. H. u. audubont is a very shy bird and always 
seen alone excepting the brief love-making period or when danger is threatening the 
well-fledged young and for a time after the young leave the nest. In the former instance 
they are very demonstrative and plucky. In the latter upon your approach to where a 
young bird is concealed the parents keep up a simple monotonous chirp. I have also 
seen them jointly chase a family of Perisoreus c. capitalis from the neighborhood of their 
nesting site. At all other times single birds only are seen, at most times with difficulty, 
for if they do not want to be seen they have the address to avoid the unpleasantness. If © 
an interview of more than a glimpse is permitted it is in his interest and not in yours. 
Having demurely interviewed you, in two or three short flights he is lost to you. He 
has learned your secret and kept his own; this is perfectly clear and plain but not the 
less vexatious. The characteristic nesting habits of this species as I have discovered 
them are: At an elevation of a little over 10,000 feet, in a sylvan, park-like shelter just 
where the conditions permit of a liberal growth of timber verging upon the vertical line 
of dwarfishness,3 restricted perhaps to a few acres—ofttimes so many yards embrace 
these attractions in miniature. Where the angular rocks, the decayed stumps with their 
prostrate trunks and the pigmy mounds and ridges of yet more aged monuments of decay 
all covered with mosses of liveliest green, mingled with dwarfed ferns, wild flowers and 
grasses of kindred tint, give to the whole groundwork a softness of effect and expression 
that is foiled by the angular trunks and limbs of the trees, at once restful to the eye and 
peaceful to the mind, altogether a scene of surpassing beauty—here dwells the hermit. 
Evidently a slip of the pen, as his notes show only one case of a nest in a deciduous tree—an aspen— 
and in another place he distinctly says that the aspen case was the only nest of the species he had ever found 
in anything but a coniferous tree. 
2 Sent to Washington. 
3 Evidently a reference to timber-line with its dwarfed trees, 
