THE OOLOGIST 



77 



Eggs and Nest of the San Lucas Robin. 



(Planesticas confinis) 



My collector, Mr. Wilmot W. Brown, 

 Jr., has just sent me two sets of eggs 

 and the nests of the San Lucas Robin 

 (Planesticus confinis) collected July 

 0, 1910 in the Sierra de Caguna Moun- 

 tains, Southern Lower California. As 

 I know of no authentic sets of this 

 species, I thought these sets should 

 be recorded. 



Unfortunately only two nests with 

 eggs were found. All the other nests 

 contained young. Both these sets of 

 three eggs were much advanced in in- 

 cubation. 



The first set was saved, but in blow- 

 ing the second, two eggs were broken. 



The two nests are fine specimens. 

 They are built of dried grass, weed 

 stalks and lichens, neatly held togeth- 

 er with mud. 



Both were found in Oak trees, at an 

 altitude of about 5500 feet above the 

 sea. 

 Nest No. 1. 



This was taken .July 5, 1910. It is 

 a bulky structure, built principally of 

 dried grasses, lichens and weed stalks 

 held together with mud. It was plac- 

 ed in an Oak tree at the juncture of a 

 limb with the trunk, about 40 feet 

 from the ground. It w^as lined with 

 fine grass. 



The color of the eggs is the same as 

 Planesticus migratorius migratorius. 



The measurements are as follows: 

 .77 X 1.11 

 .82 X 1.14 

 .83 X 1.13 

 Nest No. 2 



The second nest was placed in an 

 Oak, on a horizontal limb, about thirty 

 feet from the ground. It was made of 

 dry grasses, lichens and weed stalks, 

 neatly held together with mud. Like 

 the other it was lined with fine grass. 

 Both these nests are much better 



built than any Robin's nest I have ever 

 seen. 



The egg in this nest measured 

 .77 X 1.18. 



John E. Thayer, 

 Lancaster, Mass. 



The Robin and Cedar Waxwing. 



Living in the City of Birmingham, 

 Ala., whose population is 132,000, it 

 may be noted with some surprise that 

 great numbers of Robins and hordes 

 of Waxwings congregate in the few 

 elms that surround our home. 



It is Sunday, one of those quiet, sun- 

 shiney, and beautifully calm days, 

 which the birds recognize as one on 

 which they need have no fear of man- 

 kind. 



As I sit on my shady porch and look 

 up into the crowded elm nearby, the 

 continued "t-see ee" of the Waxwing, 

 mingled with the occasional "kuck- 

 kuck" of the Robin, together defy the 

 boy-with-the-sling-shot, who looks at 

 them with longing eyes, and thinks 

 only of tomorrow. 



Leslie Jones, 

 February 4, 1911. 



The small boy with the sling shot 

 ought to be promptly suppressed and 

 his sling shot taken from him. — Ed. 



Willis T. Mercer of Auburn, N. Y., 

 reports an unusual nest of the Chest- 

 nut-sided warbler in a small patch of 

 undergrowth in a maple bush a couple 

 of feet from the ground. The bird 

 flushed and .as I was examining the 

 three eggs, I noticed that the nest was 

 unusually deep looking on the outside, 

 but did not appear out of proportion 

 inside. On looking closer, I saw an 

 egg of the Cowbird well buried in a 

 second lining of the nest. I had never 

 seen this trick played on the Cowbird 

 before by the Chestnut-sided, so I 

 considered it quit a find. I have seen 

 a number of nests of this kind of the 

 Yellow Warbler. 



Willis T. Mercer. 



