80 THE NIDOLOIST 
do, I walked around the tree, and saw the 
nest with the bird upon it. I fired a load 
of dust shot at the limb about four feet from 
the nest but with no visible results. A load 
placed 18 inches from the nest caused the 
bird to leave. The next three hours were 
spent in attempting various methods to 
reach the nest. I succeeded after packing 
a heavy ladder one-half mile up a steep hill 
from a hotel near the American River. 
After raising the ladder it was necessary to 
nail a number of steps up to the first 
limb, which was thirty feet from the ground. 
And then came aneasy climb away out 
uear the end of a limb forty feet from the 
ground. The nest was placed upon the 
sloping limb and supported on the lower 
side by a limb crossing the one on which 
it rested. 
“Te nest was mostly composed of fine 
dry pine needles and small rootlets and 
heavily lined with reddish shreds of bark, 
and finished off with a lining of cow’s hair. 
The upper part of the nest is little more 
than a rim, while the lower part is much 
heavier and thicker. The outside diameter 
is four inches; the inside one and three 
quarters inches. The depth of the upper 
side was one inch; the depth of the lower 
two inches; inside depth, one inch. The 
eggs are quite similar to some of those of 
the Redstart, being spotted quite heavily, 
chiefly in a wreath about the largeend with 
cinnamon, brown and lavender. ‘They 
measure .71X.51; .71X.52; .72x.51 and.70x 
.50. The female was shot after the eggs 
were taken, but she did not appear while I 
was in thetree. The nest was ina yellow 
pine ona deep mountain side 300 yards 
from the American River,at 3,500 feet eleva- 
tion in El Dorado County, Cal. The Her- 
mit wasthe rarest of the five Warblers we 
found breeding in the Sierra, while the . 
size and thick foliage ofthe pines in which 
they breed,as well as the brush and roughb- 
ness of the country, make their nests diffi- 
cult to find.’’ 
— <> —— 
Curious Sets of Kingbird’s Eggs. 
N glancing over a large series of eges of 
any species, one cannot fail to notice 
some odd and abnormal ones. Andsuch 
is the case with the series of the Kingbird 
(Tyrannus tyrannns) now before me, and 
common as they are the following sets are 
so very peculiar that they seem to be 
worthy of mention. 
July 17, 1888, Taunton, Mass. ‘Two 
eggs, fresh, ground color and markings 
normal, but their sizes are extraordinary, 
one ofthem measuring r.12 x .69, and the 
other .77 x .57. Taking .95 x .68 as the 
average size of the eggs of this bird it will 
be seen what a very odd pair these are. 
June 17, 1895, Smithborough, Ill. Three 
eggs, fresh. Light creamy-white, marked 
with lilac-gray and heliotrope-purple almost 
entirely, there being only two or three 
small and indistinct spots of the chestnut 
which is typical of the normal Kingbird’s 
egg: .89 X .67; .90x.67; .93 x .68. No one 
could recognize these for eggs of this bird. 
June 6, 1886, Rozetta, Ill. These must 
unquestionably belong to Z7yrannns tyran- 
mus for no other Tyrannus is found in 
Illinois, but they exactly resemble typical 
eggs of the Gray Kingbird, (7yrannus 
ominicensis,) having the peculiar deep 
cream or pinkish-buff ground color 
characteristic of that bird’s eggs: .98x.74: 
-98 X .73; .96X .73; .95 X -73- 
The smallest sized sets measure .81 x .65; 
.81 x .65: .82 x .66; and the largest sets: 
.96 X.79; .94xX.78; .94x.78; (extremely 
broad) and 1.06 x .77; 1.01 x 76; .98x .74. 
J. Be Neve 
———————+ 2-- 
Correspondence 
On the Chimney Swift’s Habits. 
EpiTor NIpoLoGisr:—In response to the request 
in your last issue concerning the manner in which the 
Chimney Swift obtains material for its nest, I would 
offer the following: 
While at ‘‘The Elms,’”’? Amoskeag, N. H., in 1894, 
as wellas the three previous years, I had exception- 
ally fine opportunities to observe the habits of this 
species, inasmuch as the chimneys of the old mansion 
were ‘‘alive” with them Often have I watched them 
through a pair of glasses as they flew about some of the 
large elms nearest my window. At first I was unable 
to determine the exact nature of their endeavors, for 
they kept continually about the few half decayed limbs 
that appeared near the tops of the trees, but at last 
when they selected a maple tree almost beneath my 
point of view, 1 easily saw what they were doing. 
Darting up suddenly and quite fast they would nip the 
dead tip of a small branch in their bill and without the 
slightest pause or alteration in their line of flight would 
carry it off. 
Going out of doors I lay back upon the grass almost 
under the tree with my glasses upturned watching the 
little fellows. Sometimes they would not be successful 
and then they rarely returned to the same limb again. 
But when they did get a twig they would sail away 
over the orchard for nearly a hundred yards and then 
come curving up again to the house and down the 
chimney with their prize. 
Down under the bank in the orchard where it almost 
touched the brook, was a large quantity of dead brush 
piled high and thick. This also seemed to furnish the 
ot 
