Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, ^c. 537 



cliffs, gluing their nests to the sides. In the same places with 

 them are to be seen the queer bottle-nests of Hirundo lunifrons 

 and the plainer pockets of H. horreorum^ while in the stratum of 

 soil, usually to be found just below the edge of such cliffs, are 

 the holes of Cotyle, making a cullender of the bank. Herse 

 thalassina, which is very common here, eschews rocks, and is 

 exclusively pinicoline, breeding in old Woodpeckers^ holes in 

 the dead tops and limbs of trees. Every nest I have found was 

 on the under side of a limb. Progne purpurea, also very common 

 here, is exclusively pinicoline too. A colony of them club 

 together, and eject Picus harrisi, Sphyrapicus nuchalis, or Mela- 

 neipes formicivorus, as the case may be, from dead pine-tops, 

 confiscate their homesteads, and twitter their sharp defiance 

 from morning to night. I feel confident that Chcetura pelasgia 

 was a breeder in cliffs and hollow trees before chimneys came 

 into vogue ; and if ever this region of lava and pines becomes one 

 of bricks and mortar, C. vauxi, Nephcecetes, and Panyptila will 

 become " household birds.^' 



The last novelty that has turned up is a new Empidonax, 

 another new one among the host of Empidonaces difficiles already 

 on record ! Possibly it may be a species described from Cen- 

 tral America ; but it is nothing like any northern one. It is 

 considerably smaller than E. minimus — a veritable little pygmy, 

 so that I thought it was a Regulus vih&a. I shot at it. In colour 

 above, it is like any other species — none of them diff'er much ; 

 but below it is everywhere (including the wing-coverts) of a fine 

 light buff or delicate tawny — neither the yellow of E. flaviven- 

 tris, nor the whitish, ashy, or light olivaceous of E. trailli, E. mi- 

 nimus, E. pusillus, &c. I have distinguished it in my notes and 

 letters as E. pygmceus. 



To my list of Arizona birds that I have in a rather disjointed 

 way already given \yide antea, pp. 157-165] I can add the 

 following : — Archibuteo ferrugineus, common. A. lagopus (?), 

 rare. Buteo calwms (?) — a large dark species with a red tail 

 (but neither B. horealis nor B. montanus) and reddish breast, 

 which I cannot possibly identify, being without books. Hel- 



minthophaga , the species recently described [Qu. H. virginice, 



Baird, B. N. Am. Atlas, p. vii. note, and Rev. Am. B. p. 177 ?] . 



