BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES 
299 
are too well known, through the exertions of Mr. Wilbur F. Lamb, of 
Holyoke, Mass., whose interesting narrative appears in the Bulletin of the 
ISTuttall Ornithological Club, for 1877, to lead any intelligent naturalist to 
refer it thereto. Eecurring to the subject, in the Appendix to the above 
“History,” Brewer re-describes the Bendire material, although in very 
unsatisfactory terms. He says the nest was found saddled, most generally, 
on a horizontal branch of a mezquite tree, and is a shallow, nearly flat 
structure, measuring four inches across, and having a cavity two and a 
half inches in diameter, and one-half an inch in depth. Fine sticks and 
flbres of plants make up the external bulk, and within a little down of 
the cottonwood and a stray feather. The first nest, which was found May 
16, was mainly lined with the shells of empty cocoons. Though the cap- 
tain met with more than a dozen nests with eggs and young, yet, aston- 
ishing to say, he never found more than two in a nest — a striking contrast 
to Evermann’s observations. In attempting to reconcile the difference he 
honestly says: “The thing is perhaps accounted for, and I am very positive 
about my views being correct, that in California they [the Black-crested 
Flycatchers] raise only one brood, while in Arizona they raise two and 
three.” There is no doubt of the correctness of his opinion, for in this, 
as in many other species, the number of eggs in a set is probably larger 
in the northern parts of the breeding-range than in the southern, the dif- 
ference being made up by the greater number of broods annually raised 
in the latter. 
There seems to be considerable uniformity in the character of the mate- 
rials utilized in nesting. Before us are six nests from Southern California, 
and, on close examination, each seems to be the exact counterpart of every 
other. Fine grass, small sticks, thin hairy stems, vegetable fibres and wool, 
empty cocoons and seed vessels, the latter attached to their stalks, curiously 
and ingeniously matted together, and presenting a rather even surface, 
considering the abundance of sticks utilized, make up nearly the entire 
structure. The cavity exhibits the same materials, but then they are more 
smoothly adjusted by the builders. None of the nests before us are per- 
