120 TEXilS NATURE OBSERVATIONS AND REMINIS ^ilNCES. 



also accredited as seeking other 

 birds' nests to breed in. The lat- 

 ter, however, undoubtedly is an 

 error, as in the last forty and 

 more years I have never encoun- 

 tered a prairie bird nest other 

 than that of the eggsucker bird, 

 harboring an egg or more of this 

 ■cuckoo bird. 



Typical, however, of our egg- 

 sucker bird is the fact that, at 

 least as far as my observations go, 

 this bird always fills its nest-bed 

 with large numbers of dried-up 

 mesquite leaves. The nest itself 

 ]s round and flat, on the order of 



and prairie plains in late years, 

 wherever the mesquite tree grows. 

 The second illustration in this 

 article shows a typical eggsucker 

 with white and black spotted tail 

 which I encountered last May 

 in the hilly regions near Cassin's 

 lake. The nest was located between 

 forked branches of a small mes- 

 quite tree and partly covered 

 above with mesquite leaves, and 

 the old bird had escaped at the 

 moment the nest was detected, 

 and the photo reproduced as en- 

 countered is seen herein. It 

 contained five oblong and green- 



The Yellow Billed Cuckoo or Eggsucker Bird on Nest 



the dove nest, but much larger, 

 and still rather small in size for 

 the many large green-colored eggs 

 it contains — ^from four to eight. 

 This nest, however, is more com- 

 pactly built than that of the or- 

 dinary dove, the fundamental or 

 base part consisting of particles of 

 wood and thorny branch parti- 

 cles; then comes a layer of some 

 dry grasses or moss, and on this 

 or directly on the wood particles 

 several layers of dried mesquite 

 leaves are spread out in a circular 

 shape. This I have witnessed in- 

 variably in all the nests I had oc- 

 casion to encounter in the woods 



ish glittering eggs-, and the en- 

 tire inside mould of the nest was 

 lined with dried-up mesquite 

 leaves^also seen on the photo. 

 After the view was taken, at close 

 range, another cuckoo bird, per- 

 haps its mate, came flying with a 

 large beetle in its long and sharp 

 curved bill and lit near the nest 

 and place from which we had 

 just retreated. It was the yellow-' 

 billed cuckoo bird and a bgautifiir 

 specimen, of olive brown plumage, 

 with white and black spotted 

 feathers. 



The hills and woods around 

 Cassin's lake, as well as the close 



