The Gray Flycatcher 
set, two eggs, in a nest two feet up in a greasewood. The altitude was 
approximately 7000 feet, high Upper Sonoran, and about two miles 
from the nearest timber. 
Returning on the 7th of June we gave the neighborhood careful 
study, and roughly defined the limits of a small colony, at least seven 
pairs, of the supposed Wright Flycatchers. We were able to locate six 
nests in a space approximately half a mile square. It was not easy work, 
and we may have missed some. The females sat very closely, so closely, 
indeed, that we could almost touch them on the nests. Only one was 
caught foraging quite alone, and she was traced without great difficulty 
to her nest. Another bird, evidently a male, was less promising. He had 
started up somewhat brusquely from the sage, and was off so quickly that 
I could not tell within twenty feet where he came from. Again and again 
the bird lighted on the very lowest bushes and plucked something from the 
leaves, an insect, apparently. The bird also posted for aggravating 
intervals, as much as ten minutes sometimes. But I was encouraged 
by the fact that he was working back nearer to the supposed place of 
origin. A sparrow lighted in the bush at about the level I suspected the 
bird of flying from, and the flycatcher took up the challenge promptly, 
pounced upon the intruder and drove him out; having done which, 
he posted near by quite contentedly. After this he wandered aimlessly 
over nearby bushes and returned to his central post. I concluded that 
he was a male on guard near the nest. Acting on this assumption I 
arose to investigate. The bird departed instantly and ostentatiously. 
But when I took up my stand where he had been last, I had no difficulty in 
spotting the nest with the female on, about twelve feet away in a sage- 
bush. I have been thus explicit because I have never known of an 
instance in which the male wrigliti mounted guard in close proximity to 
a nest, or, indeed, betrayed any knowledge of its existence. 
These notes were dutifully filed under the heading "Empidonax 
wrigliti"; but for the rest of the season of 1919, I saw wrigliti only at 
timberline or thereabouts, and the recollection of that freak colony, 
blistering by preference in the open sage, haunted me. Then an over¬ 
looked item in “The Condor" (xvi., p. 94) came to attention: 
“Nesting of the Gray Flycatcher in Oregon. —June 7, 1913, I collected a 
nest and three eggs of the Gray Flycatcher (Empidonax griseus) on the juniper flat, at 
the north of Pauline Mountains, Crook County, Oregon. The parent bird was taken 
with the nest, and identified by Mr. H. C. Oberholser and Mr. Joseph Grinnell. The 
eggs are creamy white, and were but slightly incubated. Data reads as follows: Nest 
composed of small dead weed stems, plant-down, hair, shreds of sage-brush bark and 
some grasses, quilted together, and lined with wool and fine feathers. Situated in 
the crotch of a sage-bush, on a sage and juniper flat. Nest about two feet above the 
ground. Female bird incubating.—Alexander Walker, Mulino, Oregon.’’ 
c?pc? 
