404 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



I found them rather rare breeders in the vicinity of Tucson, and only secured 

 two of their nests, with eggs, in 1872. In southern Arizona they breed on the 

 dry plains, covered with a scanty growth of mesquite, creosote bushes, yucca, 

 and cactus, often miles from any water, more frequently than among the oaks of 

 the foothills, where I looked principally for their nests. The favorite nesting 

 sites in southern Arizona are low, scrubby mesquite trees, next oak, ash, desert 

 willow, and yucca, and in southern and western Texas ebony and hackberry 

 bushes are likewise not infrequently used for this purpose. 



The nests are usually poorly constructed affairs, and are a trifle larger than 

 those of our common Crow. Outwardly they are mainly composed of thorny 

 twigs, while the inner parts are lined with cattle hah, rabbit fur, and frequently 

 with pieces of rabbit skin, wool, dry cottonwood bark, grass, or tree moss, 

 according to locality. This lining is frequently well quilted, and again appar- 

 ently thrown in loose. They are extremely filthy and smell horribly. Old 

 nests are repaired from year to year, some of them being, as Lieutenant Benson 

 expresses it, seven or eight stories high, showing use for as many years. One 

 of the nests found by me contained a number of rags. The nests are usually 

 placed from 7 to 20' feet from the ground, rarely higher or lower. Considering 

 the warm climate in which these birds are usually found, they .nest very late. 

 Out of sixty-six records the earliest is May 6. I took this set, containing only 

 three eggs, in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains, near Tucson, and 

 incubation was about one-third advanced when the eggs were found. Only 

 twelve other sets were recorded for May, and these usually in the latter part of 

 the month. All the remaining sets 'were taken in June, and fully half of these 

 after the middle of that month. Only one brood is raised in a season. Both 

 sexes assist in incubation, which lasts about twenty-one days ; this usually begins 

 only after the set is completed; but young birds varying in size are sometimes 

 found in the same nest. The number of eggs to a set varies from three to 

 eight. In the series of eggs in the United States National Museum collection 

 sets of six and four respectively predominate, and about one set in nine contains 

 seven eggs. Mr. F. H. Fowler, of Fort Bowie, Arizona, writes me that he has 

 found as many as eight eggs in one of then nests. I can only account for the 

 remarkably late nesting of this species by the fact that insects and small reptiles, 

 which probably furnish the larger portion of the food of these birds, are much 

 more abundant in southern Arizona after the rainy season commences, about 

 the last of May, than before, and these birds seemingly understand this and act 

 accordingly. 



The eggs of the White-necked Baven are, in nearly every instance, readily 

 distinguishable from those of the other species of the Corvince found in North 

 America, and this is due to the characteristic style of their markings. The ground 

 color varies from pale green to grayish green, and only very rarely to a light 

 bluish green. Two distinct styles of markings are found among these eggs, the 

 principal but usually not the most notable one consisting of a mass of longi- 

 tudinal streaks and blotches of different shades of lilac, lavender gray, and drab, 

 running from pole to pole of the egg, and these are again more or less hidden 



