The OoLOGiST. 



VOL. XIX. NO. 3. 



ALBION. N. T., MARCH, 1903. 



Whole No. 18& 



The Oologist. 



A Monthly Publication Devoted to 



OOLOGY, ORNITHOLOGY AND 



TAXIDERMY. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and Items of Interest to the 

 student of Birds, their Nests and Eggs, solicited 

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ENTERED AT THE P. O. , ALBION, N. Y. AS SECOND-CuASS MATTER. 



Vigor's Wren. 



[Thryothorus bewickii spilurus.) . 

 There are few birds in Southern Cali- 

 fornia whose nests are harder to discov- 

 er than those of this unobtrusive little 

 Wren. Wherever there are rocky can- 



yons, particularly those which contain 

 scattering pools of water, there will b& 

 found one or more pairs, and, notwith- 

 standing the fact that they are noisy 

 and make few attempts to conceal their 

 presence, I do not believe that there is 

 any other bird of equal distribution in 

 Orange county of which local collectors 

 find few^er nests than they do of this 

 species. 



I have endeavored, through the med- 

 ium of previous letters, to acquaint the 

 readers of the Oologist with the char- 

 acter of the country with which collec- 

 tors of my locality have to contend, so 

 will not take up that line to-day other 

 than to say, in the beginning, that there 

 are many canyons, both precipitious 

 and rocky, which come down into the 

 larger gulches near their mouth. 



In these small canyons we find the 

 home of Vigor's Wren. Amidst the 

 prickly jungles of the tuna-covered flats 

 the Cactus Wrens abound, while back 

 among the oaks and sycamores there is 

 a numerous and noisy contingent of 

 Parkman's Wr^ns, but among the crev- 

 ices and along the ledges of this rocky 

 wall there is a continued roundelay, all 

 coming from the throat of a bird not 

 nearly so large as an English Sparrow. 



In my mind the species under discus- 

 sion should have been named ''troglody- 

 tes"— which means "cave - dweller" — 

 rather than the very domestic little 

 House Wren, for it is never found far 

 from rocks, and, in so far as I am able 

 to learn, never nests anywhere except 

 in crevices of reeky ledges, interstices 

 between boulders, or in small caves. 



The nesting season commences early, 

 usually before the first of April, though 

 that is probably the best month in which. 



