i6 



THE NIDIOLOGIST 



accurate record of the time the nest was com- 

 menced. 



Another nest of the Wood Thrush I found 

 in a close thicket. I had observed a shallow 

 platform of a last year's nest there some time 

 before. When I took another look at this old 

 nest one day, "just for luck," I was surprised 

 to see it built upon. It held what appeared to 

 be a paper nest, though shallow, being com- 

 pletely circled with white paper. The Wood 

 Thrush raised the walls with the usual mate- 

 rials very much higher, leaving the broad fringe 

 of paper running all around. 



A nice set of four Black-billed Cuckoos came 

 to grief in my bureau drawer. Being too busy 

 to blow the eggs, I left them for three days with 

 a piece of cotton over them. The weather had 

 been continuously warm, and a friend jokingly 

 suggested that my eggs might hatch. I took a 

 look at the Cuckoos, and there were only three 

 eggs in the nest. The fourth one was squeak- 

 ing at a great rate, a hatched-out Cuckoo ! I 

 tried to feed him on caterpillars, but it didn't 

 work, so as an expedient I placed him in with a 

 nest of young Sparrows. The Sparrows ev- 

 idently did not atifiliate with him, for they left 

 the nest a day or two afterward, and I never 

 saw the Cuckoo more. H. R. Taylor. 



Nesting of the Ruby=crowned 



Kinglet in Southern 



California. 



IN Riverside County, Cal., just to the 

 south of San Gorgonio Pass, rises the tall, 

 pine-clad peak of San Jacinto, over two 

 miles above the blue Pacific, halfway to the 

 western horizon, and as much above the Col- 

 orado deserts, which crowd along its eastern 

 base and extend a long arm up to the San 

 Gorgonio Pass between the twin sentries, 

 San Bernardino and San Jacinto, either over 

 1,100 feet in altitude. Along the eastern and 

 southern sides of San Jacinto are several small 

 valleys at different elevations, offering unpar- 

 alleled advantages for observing many of our 

 Northern species at the southern limit of their 

 breeding range. 



In fact, many of the species noted the past 

 season have, I think, not been recorded as 

 breeding so far south. 



On the afternoon of the second of July the 

 writer, in company with Mr. Ralph Hender- 

 son, pitched camp in a small valley east of the 

 main peak, at an elevation of about 9,000 feet, 

 and during the succeeding two weeks collected 

 many rare and interesting species. 



Green-tailed Towhees and Black-breasted 

 Sapsuckers were abundant, and one pair of 



Red-breasted Sapsuckers were found with a 

 brood of young — all three species somewhat 

 south of their recorded breeding range. 



But what was, perhaps, more surprising was 

 the presence of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. 

 Anywhere above 7,500 feet elevation their 

 sweet, liquid warble could be heard and the 

 birds themselves seen as they busily ransacked 

 the tree tops for insects to carry to their babies 

 at home. 



Almost the first thing that caught my eye 

 after we had camped in Round Valley was a 

 nest at the end of a pine branch overhanging 

 the creek, and within forty feet of camp. At 

 first glance I thought it was the nest of an 

 Audubon's Warbler, as there was a female of 

 that species within a few feet of the nest, and I 

 paid no further attention at the time, promising 

 myself a climb after dinner. 



An hour or so later I saw a female Kinglet, 

 with her mouth full of insects, fly to the sup- 

 posed Warbler's nest and immediately disappear 

 within. It was quite evident that I could ex- 

 pect no eggs, for both parents were constantly 

 flying back and forth with food, but I consoled 

 myself with the promise of a nest, and, after 

 all, is not that worth as much as the eggs ? The 

 latter are simply what nature makes them, and 

 are beyond the power of the bird to change or 

 modify; but the nest is an index to the char- 

 acter of the birds ; it shows their individual 

 ideas of architecture and taste for the artistic. 



On July 7 I saw what I thought was a full- 

 grown young Kinglet near the nest, being fed 

 by one of the adults, and as the nest seemed 

 deserted on the morning of the 9th, I climbed 

 up with ax and rope to secure all they had left 

 me. It was only possible to get the nest by 

 cutting the limb near the trunk of the tree and 

 lowering it gently to the ground with a rope 

 made fast halfway out to the nest and passed 

 over another branch above. 



This was successfully accomplished, but I 

 was very disagreeably surprised to see three 

 young fall into the creek as the nest was low- 

 ered, while a fourth clung to the inside of the 

 supposed deserted domicile. 



From the appearance of the youngster I 

 should say it would have been a full week be- 

 fore it would have started out into the world. 



The nest was about twenty-two to twenty-four 

 feet above the creek, and ten to twelve feet 

 from the trunk of the tree — a species of pine, 

 Finns contorta, known in that region as tam- 

 arack. 



Near the end of the limb a thick mass of 

 leaves concealed the nest from above, but from 

 below it was rather exposed. It was supported 

 onone side by the main branch, which was nearly 

 two inches in thickness, and by several smaller 



