GOLDEN-CHEEKED WARBLER. 227 
Further to the south-west the flora is still more peculiar. There we find a fine 
spotted agave’. The leaves are spotted with brown, and the greenish flowers are very 
fragrant. Here we also find one of the most magnificent yuccas? in existence. It attains 
a height of fifteen to twenty feet, and produces every year an immense spike of pure 
white, lily-like blossoms. Growing between the rocks we find an elegant shrub, about 
nine feet high, with bright green leaves, and the entire summer covered with racemes of 
tubular orange-scarlet flowers. This is Anisacanthus Wrightii. In dry river beds grows 
everywhere the beautiful willow catalpa’, a tall tree with spikes of purple and white large 
flowers during summer.—This is only a very small list of remarkable plants of western 
Texas, but in my opinion those enumerated are the most characteristic of the region. 
This part of Texas is the home of the GOLDEN-CHEEKED WARBLER, one of our most 
interesting and beautiful Wood Warblers. Wherever cedar brakes are found, this elegant 
bird seems to be more or less common. In appearance and habits this species is very 
similar to the Black-throated Green Warbler of the North. Mr. W. H. Werner found 
several nests in Comal County, Texas. According to his observations the birds are very 
active, always on the alert for insects, examining almost every limb, and now and then 
darting after them when on the wing. The male utters soft notes at intervals, which 
sound somewhat like tserr weasy-weasy tweah. He found them invariably in cedar 
timber, or ‘“‘cedar brakes,’’ as the ranch men call them. On the 18th of May he suc- 
ceeded in finding his first nest in a dense cedar thicket. It contained three eggs, and 
.also one of the Cow Bunting. In the immediate neighborhood he found a second nest, 
but it was abandoned. On May 14, 1878, he discovered two more vacant nests, and on 
examining them he found that young ones had been hatched, and had already left the 
nest.—All four nests were similar in construction, and were built in forks of perpen- 
dicular limbs of the mountain cedar, from.ten to eighteen feet from the ground. The 
outside is composed of the inner bark of the cedar, interspersed with spider webs, well 
fastened. to the limb, and in color resembling the bark of the tree on which it is built, 
so that, even at a short distance, it is difficult to detect the nest. In April, May, and 
June of the following years I had frequent opportunities of observing these beautiful 
birds in the cedar brakes in Travis, Hays, Comal, Lee, and Bastrop Counties. In the 
first and second weeks of May I saw them carry nesting materials into the interior of 
large and dense cedar thickets where it was almost impossible to follow them. Suffice 
it to say that I did not succeed in finding a single nest. 
Mr. Brewster describes a nest, presented to him by Mr. Werner, more minutely: 
“The original position of this nest is well shown, as it is well preserved with a section 
of the limb upon which it was found. It is placed in a nearly upright fork of a red 
cedar, between two stout branches, to which it is firmly attached. Although a large, 
deep structure, it by no means belongs to either the bulky, or loosely woven class of 
bird domiciles, but is, on the contrary, very closely and compactly felted. In general 
character and appearance it closely resembles the average nest of the Black-throated 
Green Warbler. It is, however, of nearly double the size, in fact, larger than any Wood 
Warbler’s nest (excepting, perhaps, that of the Myrtle Warbler) with which I am 
acquainted. It measures as follows: external diameter, 3.50; external depth, 3.45; 
1 Agave maculata, 2% Yucca Treculiana. % Chilopsis linearis. 
