The Verdin 
eggs in reverse fashion and to reinstate the nest in some other thorny 
tangle equally secure was but the work of a moment. The birds both 
attended closely, as the male came up at the first sign of disturbance, and 
they exhausted the Verdinian vocabulary from tslit down,—all, it must be 
confessed, quite daintily and inoffensively. 
Not less remarkable than these fortified nurseries are the structures 
Taken in Arizona Photo ly the Author 
NEST OF VERDIN (OCCUPIED) IN PALO VERDE 
which the birds erect as roosts or winter lodges. According to Mr. M. 
French Gilman, 1 who has made a special study of these birds upon the 
Colorado desert, these lodges are built in the fall or early winter and are 
of two types. 
“The nests of male and female differ a little, the former being less 
elaborate, smaller, with not so much lining in it. The female winter nest 
differs but little from the breeding nest and I am inclined to believe in 
some cases is used as such, possibly by inexperienced or lazy birds.” 
Two male lodges in the M. C. O. are each only three inches in length 
over all, with openings at either end, and about two and a half inches of 
1 Condor, Vol. IV., No. 3, July, 1902, p. 88. 
627 
