HAMMOND'S FLYCATCHER, 317 



Among - Mr. Bel ding's field notes, which he kindly placed at my disposal, I 

 find the following description of this nest: 



"It appeared to be nicely made of much the same materials as are used by 

 Contopus richardsoni, but is much wider than the nest of the latter species, having 

 a width of not less than 4 inches. The outer wall was noticeably convex." 



While on a visit to Seattle, Washington, in May, 1894, Mr. S. F. Rathbun 

 told me of finding a nest situated on a small limb of a fir near Lake Washing- 

 ton, during the previous season, which he thought belonged to this species, but 

 he did not secure one of the birds. He found a similar nest this season, on July 

 1, 1894, also placed on a small limb of a fir about 50 feet from the ground. It 

 was built at a point on the limb where a small twig branched out, being partly 

 saddled and partly crotched. After watching the bird go several times to the 

 nest, he shot it and sent it to me for fuller identification ; it proved to be a 

 Hammond's Flycatcher beyond a doubt, as he had previously surmised. 



Hammond's Flycatcher is evidently a very common summer resident in 

 central British Columbia, where Mr. R. MacFarlane took a number of its nests 

 in the vicinity of Stewart's Lake, in June, 1889, and the United States National 

 Museum was favored with several sets of eggs, nests, and the parents belonging 

 to them, all of which proved to belong to this species. Some of these nests 

 were apparentlv placed in upright crotches of willows, and others on horizontal 

 limbs close to the trunks of small conifers, at no great distance from the ground. 

 The earliest of six breeding records from this vicinity is June 4; the latest, June 

 22. The nests differ somewhat from those previously described as far as the 

 inner lining is concerned. In three of these the bottoms are covered with scales 

 of buds of conifers, and the sides are lined with fine plant fibers, shreds of bark, 

 plant down, and bits of hypnum moss in fruit. 



Mr. Charles A. Allen writes me that he found Hammond's Flycatcher nest- 

 ing in Blue Canyon, Placer County, California, at an altitude of about 5,000 

 feet, the nests were placed on horizontal limbs, well out, in shady places in the 

 pine forests of the Sierra Nevadas. 



The number of eggs laid to a set is usually three or four. The shell is 

 strong, close-grained, and without luster. They vary in shape from short ovate 

 to elongate ovate. The ground color is pale, creamy white, and the majority 

 of the eggs are unspotted. In the small series before me there are, how- 

 ever, two sets which are spotted. In the set of four eggs taken by Mr. Gale 

 every egg- is marked, and the same is the case with a set of three eggs taken by 

 Mr. R. MacFarlane. Mr. Gale made the following remarks about the set taken 

 by him: "The eggs are very interesting; a decided light-yellow ground, with a 

 slight powdering of dark specks, with larger shell markings of lavender tints." 

 The spots or specks on all the specimens are exceedingly minute, and are also 

 few in number, well rounded in outline, and mostly distributed about the larger 

 end of the egg; they are of a liver-brown color. The lighter lavender-colored 

 shell markings referred to by Mr. Gale are barely visible now, having faded out. 



The average measurement of sixteen eggs in the United States National 

 Museum collection is 16.84 by 12.90 millimetres, or about 0.66 by 0.51 inch. 



