1881.] Notes on the Breeding of a few Western Birds. 215 
(Phenopepla nitens). All along the line of railroad through the 
Colorado desert, where the mesquite grows at all—and this is at 
intervals only—I saw little flocks of these birds sitting on the 
tops of the trees, and ever and anon darting through the air in 
pursuit of insects. During my hunt for the gnat-catcher’s nest 
I started one of these birds from a thick clump of mistletoe, and 
on close examination discovered its nest in it. Climbing the 
thorny mesquite with manyia scratch, I at length succeeded in 
getting a footing where I could look in the mistletoe and examine 
the nest, It contained two eggs, and was of a very pe¢uliar con- 
struction for a nest built in a tree, and looked more like the nests 
of such birds as build in a hole in a tree, as the ash-throated fly- 
catcher. It was small and composed of small twigs, grasses, 
vegetable fibers and down, loosely matted together, and with a 
small cavity pressed out in it. It was in the heart of the mistle- 
toe and was not fastened to its branches, but laid on them and 
kept secure by the thick growth of the plant. The two eggs, 
considerably advanced in incubation, were very peculiar—of a 
slate-colored body ground, they were thickly marked all over 
with black spots, forming a dark ring around the center of the 
egg, which gradually shaded off at the larger end. They some- 
what resemble the eggs of the cedar bird. The bird itself I did 
‘not recognize until I had shot and examined it. A peculiarity in 
its plumage, noticeable in flight, is the white color of the inner 
webs of the primaries; this, looking from beneath the bird while 
on the wing, gives a transparent look to half of the wings. Two 
eggs seem to be a small number for a full set, but they were 
nearly incubated and the cavity of the nest did not look as if it 
could contain more, so it may be the full number. Although I 
saw numbers of these birds at Tucson, yet it was later and I 
found no more nests. 
The Arkansas fly-catcher /7yrannus verticalis)—the Western 
bee-bird—is everywhere common, At Tucson I first found the 
nest and eggs, which cannot be distinguished from those of our 
f. carolinensis. The long-tailed chat (Jcteria longicauda) is fully 
as common as our yellow-breasted chat, and is, in fact, too much 
like it to form a distinct species. Its nests, and eggs too, are 
identical with the yellow-breasted species. The little yellow 
warbler (D. @stiva) is abundant ; and I was surprised to observe 
several pairs of redbirds ( Cardinalis virginianus) around Tucson, 
