280 BIRDS OP WESTERN AND 



■were only a few of them, and I believe they seldom left the garden. Subsequently I procured specimens in a 

 garden near Guadalajara, and saw some in cages in the City of Mexico. I have never met with it in the for- 

 est of the Western Coast region, and consider it comparatively rather a rare species in Western Mexico." 



90. Icterus pustulatus (Wagl.). 



Tepic, Grayson; Mazatlan, Xantus, Bischoff; Plains of Colima, Manzanilla Bay, Xantus. 



" Of the numerous species of orioles inhabiting the Tropics, this one is the most familiar about the locality 

 of Mazatlan, and indeed all of Western Mexico. I found it as far south as Tehuantepec, Guadalajara, Tepic, 

 and other places, where I always met with it as a well-known and common species. Its long pensile nest, its 

 sprightly little song, and more especially the gay plumage of a fully adult male, renders it a conspicuous bird 

 among the feathered songsters of its native woods. 



" The nests are generally suspended from a tough, slender branch or recumbent twig of the acacia tree, 

 protected from the intense rays of the sun by the beautiful canopy of its fringed foliaged branches. Such a 

 tree as the tamarind acacia is often selected, and one or two nests are sometimes seen swaying in the breeze, 

 beneath the generous shade of this perennial beauty of the forest. The nest is composed of the thread-like or 

 elastic fibres of the maguey plant. I have seen some in which cotton thread and twine were component parts 

 of its elastic and firm structure. The nests are of various lengths, conformable to the materials at hand for 

 the intricate formation of the warp necessary for the weaving of this unique and airy abode, in which to rear 

 their little family. The inside bottom is lined with the downy substance of the tree cotton, intermixed with 

 a few feathers. In one nest I found an entire skein of yellow silk, which it had doubtless picked up where 

 some village brunette had dropped it. 



" The eggs are generally five in number, rather long, of a pale blue ground, with numerous hieroglyphic 

 scratches confluent around the larger end." 





91. Icterus graysoni Cass. 



Proc. Bost. Soc. of N. H., xiy, p. 280. 



" Mnsch, Abh. nat. Ver. zu Bremen, 1870, p. 336. 

 Tres Marias Islands, Grayson. 



" This fine species I found to be quite abundant upon the Three Marias, where it appears to be local and 

 peculiar." 



92. Molothrus pecoris var. ohscurus (Gm.). 

 Mazatlan, Grayson ; ManzaniUa Bay, Xantus. 



"The remarkable and apparently unnatural habits of this species, in preparing no nest in which to rear 

 their young, but selecting those of other birds, distributing an egg in each, leaving it to be hatched and the 

 nestling to be reared by foster parents, is well known to ornithologists, as well as to the scrutinizing observer 

 of nature, whose wonders are revealed to him in many strange forms. 



" The birds whose nests are selected in which to deposit its egg are usually smaller than itself In the vicin- 

 ity of Mazatlan, the beautiful and basket-shaped nest of Vireosylvia flavoviridis seems to be the one pre- 

 ferred. This Vireo is a summer visitant from the regions of Central America ; soon after their arrival they 

 commence their nidifioation, which is in May and the early part of June. The nest is generally placed pen- 

 dant between two branches, usually low down. I have found this species quite abundant on a small, thickly 

 wooded peninsula near the sea^shore, but a short distance from the city of Mazatlan. Here I have seen the 

 female Cow-bird stealthily seeking an opportunity to drop its egg in the nest of the Vireo. She at length 

 finds this opportunity in the absence of the true owners of the nest, but not before one egg at least has been 

 laid does she deposit hers by its side, otherwise the Vireo would ^abandon it. The intruder's egg is first 

 hatched, and the others a little after. The larger size and greater strength of the foundling absorbs 

 all the attention of the poor dupe of a dame, and she proves a very afiectionate and assiduous nurse to the 

 uncouth sti-anger. 



" The Cow-bird is very numerous in the region of Mazatlan and Tepic, and in fact pretty generally dis- 

 tributed over Mexico. About Mazatlan they are seen in large flocks, often in company with the larger species 

 of this genus, M. ORneusV 



