﻿IIO FIELD AND FOREST. 



(Cotyle reparia.) "They had," says Mr. Allen, "the same appear- 

 ance of breeding in the banks as Cotyle reparia themselves," 



It appears that the brown thrush (Harporhynchus rufus) is guided 

 entirely by circumstances in the situation of its nest. When building 

 "in dry, sandy localities, it is well known to commonly nest on the 

 ground ; and to place its nest in low bushes, where the soil is damp 

 and clayey." Mr. Allen found it along Big Creek, near Fort Hayes, 

 "nesting in low bushes, and also in trees sixteen to twenty feet from 

 the ground." This creek "is subject in summer to sudden freshets, 

 the stream flowing between abrubt banks, sometimes rising ten or 

 twelve feet in a single night, half submerging the trees that grow along 

 the narrow bed. It was under the latter circumstances that the nests of 

 this species were found placed twenty feet above the ground, while 

 but a few yards distant other nests were found in low bushes, the 

 bushes, however, growing on the bluffs, several feet above high-water 

 mark. 



" Other species that generally nest near the ground were also found 

 to place their nests at a similar elevation, when breeding in the trees 

 that grew along the bed of Big Creek." 



The Dove ( Zenaidura Carolinensis) displays no preference in se- 

 lecting a building site, as its nests have been discovered on the ground, 

 on bushes, on low trees and in the very tops of tall ones. At the Gar- 

 den of the Gods, in Colorado, we have two instances of departure 

 from primitive nesting habits. The common sparrow-hawk (Falco 

 sparverius) and the Tachycinata tkalassina both usually depend 

 upon trees for eligible places for nidification, — the former in large 

 cavities rotted in the trees, the latter in smaller ones, — while here, no 

 trees being within miles, though there "are remarkable pinnacles of 

 rock rising vertically to a height of from one hundred to three hun- 

 dred feet, abounding in holes admirably suited for nesting sites for these 

 and other birds," they have taken to them and breed as readily as in 

 their old places. 



The golden-winged woodpecker, (Colaptes auratus) * in the absence 

 of trees in the West, finds that it can content itself with the banks of 



* The (so-called) C. Mexicanus is evidently no more than a geographical race of the 

 eastern, bird ; and however dear to certain innovators the trinomial system may be, 

 relegation of the several " varieties" by calling them — individually and collectively — 

 " a'iratus " would be in the interest of the science. 



