NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 279 



says some sets are precisely like large Vireo's eggs. Mr. Sennett gives 

 the average size, taken from a large series, as .86 x .60. 



5053. Icterus cucullatus nelsoni Ridgw. 



Arizona Hooded Oriole. 



Hab. Southern Arizona and California, south into Western Mexico and Lower California. 



This variety of the Hooded Oriole is a common breeding bird in 

 Southern Arizona and California. Prof. B. W. Evermann found it 

 nesting quite numerously as far north as San Buenventura, California, 

 and states that it has been found breeding at Santa Barbara, thirty 

 miles farther up the coast, though not so commonly as in Ventura 

 county. The first full set of eggs was taken May i ; the average num- 

 ber to a set in that region is five. The nests were generall}' stispended 

 in sycamores, often in live-oaks, ranging from five to fifteen feet from 

 the ground. They are composed of grass picked while yet green, so 

 that the nest is usually of a bright straw-color. 



Mr. R. B. Herron found this bird breeding at San Gorgonia Pass, 

 California, in the months of May and June, 1883 ; the nests were placed 

 in sycamores, ranging from ten to twenty feet above the ground. In 

 Southern Arizona it was found breeding abundantly by Mr. W. E. 

 D. Scott, in May, June and July, rearing two, not infrequently three 

 broods in a season ; a new home is built for each brood. The nests 

 were built in cottonwoods, ash and sycamores, from twelve to forty- 

 five feet above the ground ; they were also built in the mistletoe that 

 grows plentifully on the mesquite trees in the region about Tucson. 

 The nests were exceedingly variable in their appearance, composition 

 and manner of attachment to the trees — some were truly pensile, like 

 those of the Baltimore Oriole, others were more like those of the 

 Orchard Oriole, and one rested on a stout twig and could hardly be 

 regarded as a hanging nest at all. The external materials were coarse 

 dry or green grasses and yucca fibres ; the linings were the same, but 

 finer, and in some instances horse-hairs and cotton-waste. In these 

 nests Mr. Scott found three or four eggs. 



The eggs vary somewhat in shape, some being obtuse and more 

 spherical, others more pointed and oblong. They have a beautiful 

 white ground, sometimes tinged with bluish, marbled, blotched and 

 dotted with large dashes and irregular zigzag lines of purple, brown 

 and black, chiefly at the larger end. A complement of four typical 

 eggs, collected by Prof. Evermann near Santa Paula, California, April 

 13, 1881, measure as follows: .94X.66, .94X.64, .92X.63, .89X.63. 

 Four sets of four eggs each, collected by Mr. Herron, are before me. 

 A set taken June 10, 1883, exhibit the following dimensions: .79X.63, 



