480 NEST AND EGGS OP MTIADESTES TOWNSENDI 



The nidiflcation of nitem has occasioned much uncertainty 

 and confusion ; thus, Dr. Brewer has described the nest and eggs 

 as those of Myiadestes townsendL* The earliest allusion to the 

 nest of Phcmopepla I have seen is that made by Cooper, who 

 states that he found a nest near Fort Mojaveon the 25th of April, 



* When I prepared my account of this bird for eailier pages of the 

 preseit work, 12 sheets of which, up to p. 192, were printed in 1876, 

 the eggs were still unknown. The requisite information has since been 

 furnished by Mr. Wilbur F. Lamb, of Holyoke, Mass., whose interesting 

 narrative I will here transcribe entire from the Bulletin of the Nuttall 

 Ornithological Club, vol. ii. no. 3, July, 1877, p. 77. 



" Nest and Eggs of TowNSBNiys Flycatcher. — In July, 1876, while 

 rambling with my brother over the mountains of Summit County, Colorado, 

 it was my good fortune to find, at an altitude of about ten thousand feet, the 

 nest of Townsend's Flycatcher {Myiadestes townsendi), and as no description of 

 its eggs has yet appeared, perhaps the following may not be uninteresting : 

 The nest was very loosely, and, externally, shabbily built of long dry grasses, 

 straggling two feet or more below it. It was placed on the upper bank of a 

 miner's ditch (running from the Bear River, above Breokenridge, to the Gold 

 Run and Buffalo Flat diggings), and was partly concealed by overhanging 

 roots ; yet it was rendered so conspicuous by the loose swaying material of 

 which it was composed, as well as by that which had become attached to 

 the overhanging roots during its construction, as to attract the eye of an 

 experienced collector when yet some rods away. On nearing the nest the 

 bird immediately took flight, and alighted on the topmost branch of the 

 nearest pine. Resting uneasily here for half a minute, it then, in short, uncer- 

 tain flights, worked its way down the mountain side and out of sight. With- 

 drawing to a convenient cover, we had only to wait a few moments for the 

 bird to return, perch herself on a branch a few feet from the nest, peer 

 anxiously into it, and then quickly resume her task of incubation. Moving 

 cautiously along the bank above the ditch, we tried to capture the bird by 

 placing a hat over the nest, but, miscalculating its location by a few inches, 

 the bird eluded the stroke and made good her escape, as she did also on our 

 second attempt to capture her. Again retreating to cover, we waited for 

 half an hour for the bird to return, when suddenly we espied it flying from 

 branch to branch, displaying by its restless motions more anxiety and sus- 

 picion than before, yet constantly working nearer its home, which it soon 

 reached and settled quietly again to business. After the last unsuccessful 

 attempt to catch the bird, a stick was placed on the bank directly over the 

 nest, to mark its exact locality, and this time moving with less haste and 

 more caution, we gained the desired position, lay down on the bank, and 

 taking a hat in each hand quickly covered the opening and secnred the 

 unfortunate bird, and also the opportunity of giving to ornithologists an 

 authentic account of the number, size, and coloration of the eggs. The nest 

 contained four eggs, very closely resembling those of the Shrikes. The 

 ground color is dull white or bluish, thickly blotched or freckled with red- 

 dish-brown. The measurements of the three specimens preserved are 1.01 by 

 .66, .94 by .68, and .88 by .66. Incubation had been going on for about ten 

 days, and unfortunately one egg was destroyed in cleaning." 



