308 NESTS AND EOOS OF 



Columbia and interior of British America; south in winter through Mexico and 

 Central America. 



The Western Wood Pewee is common in various reelons of Western United 

 States, as in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, etc. Colonel Goss 

 records it as a rare summer resident In Western Kansas; begins laying the first of 

 June. Mr. Bryant informs me that it Is tolerably common near Oakland, Cal., where 

 it nests by preference on the horizontal branches of alders, about fifteen feet from 

 the ground. According to Mr. Emerson it is not at all common abodt Hayward, 

 Cal. A nest taken May 22, 1881, was placed on the large horizontal limb of a syca- 

 more, thirty feet from the ground; another, taken in Santa Cruz county. May 26, 

 was also built in a similar position at a height of forty feet. At Fort Klamath, Ore- 

 gon, Dr. Merrill found the nests usually built on a horizontal pine branch, often at 

 a considerable elevation; sometimes they are placed against upright twigs, and. 

 others merely saddled on the bare limb. Only one was found in an aspen tree. 

 They averaged rather deejper than the nests of 0. vi/rens, and were not coated with 

 lichen's. The nests of the Western Wood Pewee do not differ widely from those of 

 the typrcal virens, except that they are rarely ornamented with lichens. The eggs, 

 too, are similar — creamy-white, marked with spots of chestnut-brown, umber and 

 lilac-gray in wreaths about th'e larger end or center of the eggs; the nuiaber de- 

 posited ranges from two to four, usually three. A set of three in my cabinet col- 

 lected in Douglass county, Colorado, June 10, 1887, have the following measurements: 

 .67X.57, .69X.57, .65x.57. 



462a. LABOE-BILLED WOOD PEWEE. Contopus richardsonii peninsula 

 Brewst. Geog. Dlst. — Sierra de la Laguna, Lower California. 



This subspecies was first described by Mr. William Brewster (The Auk, Vol. VIII, 

 p. 144). It is an inhabitant of Lower California a,nd, while so far as I am aware there 

 is nc published account concerning its nests and eggs, it is reasonable to suppose that 

 they differ little from those of the Western Wood Pewee, 0. richardsonii. 



463. YELLOW-BELLIED ELYCATCHER. Empidonaso flaMventris Balrd. 

 Geog. Dist. — Eastern North America to the Great Plains, south in winter through 

 Eastern Mexico and Central America. Breeds from Northern United States north- 

 ward. 



A common bird In Eastern United States, where it frequents thickets, swampB 

 and woodland. It does not seem to have been met with or observed during the breed- 

 ing season so commonly as other members of the genus Empidonax, which is doubt- 

 less due to the peculiarity of its nidiflcation, and from Its limited breeding area with- 

 in the United States. Its note is as much entitled to the name of song as many of 

 the Warblers and other Osdnes. A nest containing four eggs was found by Mr. H. A. 

 Purdy on June 18, in Aroostook county, Maine, at the edge of a wooded swamp, built 

 in a ball of green moss in the roots of an upturned tree, two feet from the ground. 

 It was composed of dry moss, and the outside was faced with the same in its beauti- 

 ful green state. It was large for the size of the bird, and was lined mostly with fine 

 black roots, a few pine needles and grass stems. June 10, 1878, Mr. S. D. Osborne 

 found a nest of this species, with four eggs, on the Island of Grand Manan. It was 

 built in a good-sized hummock of moss at the edge of some low woods. The cavity 

 extended in about two Inches, and was about four Inches deep, lined with a few 

 grasses, black, hair-like roots, etc. Another nest, similar In construction, was found 

 by Mr. Osborne In Oxford county, Maine, In a bunch of moss under the roots of a 



