Arizona Gardens 221 
“sympathy for it, or it for him, which thus 
permits them to live in accord. And he is 
about the only friend the plant has. One 
sometimes sees the nest of the thrasher in this 
species, but with this exception, the cactus 
wren appears to be the only bird to seek so 
dangerous a nesting-place; and though this 
bird builds in the saguaro, the prickly pear, 
the canotia, and the palo verde, the majority 
of nests in this region are placed in Bigelow’s 
cholla, the most irritable and unapproachable 
plant in North America. 
No concealment is possible. The nest is as 
plainly in view as the plant itself and the bird 
would seem to be aware of the nature of the 
protection the cactus offers and to rely upon 
that, instead of upon concealment as do most 
birds; though the fact that the nest is also 
placed in the parkinsonia, where it is almost 
as much exposed and where it receives practi- 
cally no protection, does not support this view. 
The defence that this cactus affords the nest 
is admirably illustrated by a cholla in plain 
view asI write. An old nest lies in the thorny 
embrace of the cactus joints, a bulky flask- 
shaped affair, a foot and a half in length, with 
a small opening which leads as it were by the 
neck of the flask to the nest proper. Within 
