The Western Gnatcatcher 
variously at moderate heights in shrub or tree; depth, over all, 3 inches; inside 1 }4 to 1^4 
inches; width, over all, 2J4 to 2^ inches inside; at brim inches. Eggs: 4 or 5; 
palest niagara green, pale “bluish” gray, or bluish white, sharply, heavily, and almost 
uniformly spotted with reddish brown (cameo-brown to burnt umber). Av. of 22 eggs 
in M. C. O. colls.: 14.2 x 10.9 (.56 x .43). Season: May-June; one or two broods. 
Range of Polioptila carulea. —Mexico and southern United States, north in the 
central eastern states to southern Wisconsin and Michigan; southern Ontario. 
Range of P. c. obscura. —Western United States and Mexico. Breeds from 
Shasta County, California, southern Nevada, southern Utah, and Colorado, south to 
Guanajuato and the Cape region of Lower California, and east to the Pecos River, 
Texas. Winters from southern California and southern Arizona south to Puebla and 
Cape San Lucas. 
Distribution in California. —Resident in the Upper and Lower Sonoran zones 
of the San Diegan district (including Catalina and Santa Cruz Islands) and along the 
valleys of the inner coast ranges north to Paicines in San Benito County; summer 
resident along the western skirts of the Sierras and along the inner coast ranges north of 
San Francisco Bay to Shasta County (Baird, Townsend); Begum, Tehama County, 
July 4, 1916, author); casually to Yreka (J. G. Cooper); also along the desert ranges 
southeast of the southern Sierras north to the White Mountains (Nelson, Fisher); and 
on the east slopes of the Sierras north to Independence Creek (Stephens, Fisher). 
Common in winter in the southeastern section of State, including deserts and Colorado 
River valley. 
Authorities.—Gambel ( Culicivora carulia), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. 
iii., 1847, p. 156 (upper Calif.); Chamberlin, Condor, vol. iii., 1901, p. 33, figs, (life hist.; 
nest and eggs; habits; drawings of nests); Beal, U. S. Dept. Agric., Biol. Surv. Bull., 
no. 30, 1907, p. 84 (food); Tyler, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 9, 1913, 107 (San Joaquin 
Valley; habits). 
PURSUIT of the Gnatcatchers is not only bad form but bad busi¬ 
ness. if your business happens to be learning all you can about the ways 
of birds. Let the birds pursue you, instead. How this is likely to come 
about two note-book entries will suggest: 
Shandon, May 12, IQ12: Tsuei tsee — tsip tsee — bizzit — wee, tsee, 
dzee—dzeer gueick —fluttering down like an autumn leaf came my Gnat- 
catcher, chattering, scolding, or singing happily at every step—for his 
mood changes twice with every breath. I knew he would come all the 
way down, for he had spied a curious looking brown hulk in the grass 
and must needs obtain specific news for the Polioptilian Hourly Reflector 
—dzuei dzeel—chut chut—dzeer dut dut —“Why! It’s just a man in khaki!” 
So he flutters, unlike the leaf, upward, with his tail pointing by turns 
in 3Jtr2 directions. “Bye, bye, you animated atom of mortality! To 
think that Life comprehends you and me and the hippopotamus!” 
Santa Barbara, Sept. 11, 1915: When the woodland exquisite 
sighted me sitting cross-legged on the edge of a dwarf willow cover, he 
was moved with an elfin curiosity and flitted toward me, bough by bough, 
until he was within three feet of my face. On such occasion one can 
8 lO 
