34 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



It was shot from a low bush under a tree, where it was seen flitting 

 back and forth after insects. 



398— 2 —5.50 X 8.10 s 2.35 x 2.10. May 8, Hidalgo. 



Pyrocephalus rubineus mexicanuSj (Scl.) Coues. — Vermilion Fly- 

 catcher. 

 This little beauty must be a very rare bird on our Southern border. 

 If it were otherwise we should have seen much more of it, for it fre- 

 quents just such places as we were in the habit of visiting almost daily, 

 and its brilliant colors would certainly assist us in observing it. The 

 few that we met with were rather shy and restless. At sight of us, they 

 darted from one clump of bushes to another, keeping from four to six 

 feet from the ground. The first male I shot was winged, and when 

 caught fought with all the courage of its larger relatives. 



113— $ —6.00 X 10.75 X 3.25 x 2.50. Mar. 29, Brownsville. 

 166— $ —6.10 X 10.50 X 3.25 x 2.50. Apr. 6, Brownsville. 

 315— ? —6.00 X 10.00 X 3.25 x 2.50. Apr. 30, Brownsville. 



CAPEIMULGID^. 



Nyctidromus americanus, [L.) Cass. 



I was prepared to meet this bird, both by the account* of its discov- 

 ery within our limits last year by Dr. Merrill, and by his personal descrip- 

 tion of it before my going up the river from Brownsville. Although I 

 frequently heard it at night, yet I never saw it in the twilight, as I did 

 CJiordeiles texensis, the Texas Nighthawk. I saw them occasionally, 

 singly and in pairs, about the thickets and open chaparral, and once in 

 the canebrakes close to the woods. Although they lie close until one is 

 full upon them, yet one has no chance after they are flushed, for they 

 are no sooner out of one thicket than they are into or behind another. 1 

 refrained from making too much of an effort to shoot them until I should 

 obtain their eggs; therefore, of the dozen or more seen I have yet to take 

 the bird in hand. On April 25th I found one egg of this species ; on May 

 1st, another; and on May 10th, two more, all of them fresh and perfect. 

 They were found in open brush, on the bare ground. One of them was 

 partly concealed by the branches of a low bush six or eight inches from 

 the ground. Of the four eggs found I retain but two, which I describe. 

 One egg is a rounded oval, and the other a pointed oval. The color is 

 a rich creamy-buff. One is marked sparsely all over with indistinct 

 spots of pink, and the other is thickly spotted and scratched with the 

 same. One egg measures 1.28 by 0.92, the other 1.20 by 0.93 of an inch. 



Chordbiles texensis, Lawr. — Texas JSfightJiatvJc. 



This bird is common on the Mexican border, at evening flitting around 

 the habitations and by day sitting around the open mezquite chaparral. 



* [See Bull, of the Nutt. Ornith. Club, i. n. 4, 88, Nov. 1876. — Having seen no speci- 

 mens, I take the name from Cass. Pr. Phila. Acad. 1851, 179, and Cah. Mus. Hein. iii. 

 1830, 92.— E. C] 



