218 Notes on the Breeding of a few Western Birds. [Matrch, 
respectively three and four eggs in. Their nests are wonderful 
pieces of bird architecture, being often half the size of a man’s 
head, and the builder scarce larger than a humming bird! They 
were each built at the end of a horizontal limb, and firmly woven 
around it; composed of thorny twigs well interwoven with 
grasses, vegetable fibers and mosses, and the interior compactly 
lined with down and feathers, not only on the bottom but all 
around the inner circumference of the nest. The entrances to 
these unique structures were at first invisible to me, so small and 
well concealed were they; placed at the top or on one side, they 
were either immediately under the supporting limb or the fabric 
of the nest above the hole was pulled down so as to conceal its 
presence. The little birds are very shy, and seldom show them- 
selves except when they have young. The eggs in both nests 
were well incubated and I am convinced were all the birds were 
going to lay in that, their second nest. Five constitutes the 
full number in the first set, as proved by the five young birds I 
found on the desert. The nests, although generally situated 
within a few feet of the ground, were sometimes placed as high as 
twenty feet, and some, too, were placed between the forks of a 
cactus. The eggs are of a light-green color, varying in intensity 
in different specimens, and were marked with numerous fleckings 
of a golden-brown, more numerous around the larger end ; they 
were of a scant half inch in length, and rather pointed. 
Another bird peculiar to this fauna is the chapparal cock or 
road-runner (Geococcyx californianus). This bird is wide-spread 
throughout the southern borders of our country, and its eggs are 
not rare in collections; but as to their number and the situation . 
of the nest, there are contrary assertions. I have heard it said 
that two constituted the full set, and that one was laid some time 
before the other, after the occasional manner of the cuckoo ; also 
that the nest was laid on the ground in the midst of a clump of 
cactus. I have seen a good many nests and heard from collectors 
in the localities of many more, and while occasionally placed in 
the cactus and rarely on the ground, the majority of the nests 
were in thick bushes; and in one case, as witnessed by myself, 
the nest was built on a thick horizontal mesquite limb, fully 
twelve feet from the ground, The nest, too, instead of being rude 
-and imperfect, was rather neatly built of coarse sticks, and with 
the considerable cavity lined with grasses. The eggs in this nest 
