ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 
79 
young, attended by the parents, the third week in August, 1876, 
on Mount Monadnock, New Hampshire, which he has no doubt 
were hatched in the immediate vicinity. Mr. J. K. Lord states that 
these birds were abundant on Vancouver’s Island and the adjacent 
coast, where he found them building pensile nests suspended from 
the tips of high pine branches, in which they laid from five to seven 
eggs. He does not describe the eggs, which was hardly to be ex- 
pected, perhaps, considering the half-use he seems to have made of 
his opportunities. 
Herr F. W. Baedeker has figured the egg in the Journal fiir 
Ornithologie ” (1856, p. 33, PL I, Fig. 8), and also in his large work 
on the eggs of the birds of Europe. Dr. Coues observes, in a pri- 
vate communication to me, “ The plate indicates a rather roundish 
egg, though the two specimens figured differ noticeably in size and 
shape ; they are spoken of in the text as ‘ niedliche kleine Eirchen 
mit lehmgelben ben Flekschen auf weissen Grunde,’ and compared 
with those of other species illustrated on the same plate.” 
Regulus cuvieri, described by Audubon from a specimen taken 
near the banks of the Schuylkill River, has remained unknown to 
ornithologists ever since. 
NESTING HABITS OF THE CALIFORNIAN HOUSE WREN 
(TROGLODYTES AEDON VAR. PARKMANNI). 
BY DR. J. a. COOPER. 
The little fellows who require such a triple scientific name, ac- 
cording to the latest fashion in nomenclature, have this year ex- 
hibited in my garden a remarkable characteristic or habit, which, 
if not confined to the western race, has never been recorded of those 
individuals found in the northeastern section of the Union, though 
it may be looked for in the longer summers of the southern and 
interior States. 
The well-known fact that during the season of incubation the 
males usually busy themselves in building several nests in places 
where they seem quite unnecessary, has always been attributed to 
a sort of whim or desire for occupation, or to a judicious foresight ; 
providing thus against a possible destruction of the first nest. 
