5 2 
General Notes . 
dratral Hotcs. 
The Tufted Titmouse on Staten Island, N. Y. — I shot a specimen 
of this species {Lopkofihanes bicolor ) on the 24th of August, 1881, in a 
thick wood, a few miles south of Port Richmond, a small town on the 
north shore of Staten Island, N. Y. — Daniel E. Moran, Brooklyn , N. T. 
Nesting of the White-bellied Wren {Thryothorus beivicki leuco- 
gaster ). — This Wren is abundant in Northern Arizona, where I saw it and 
heard it singing most constantly, during the month of June, while travel- 
ing from Fort Whipple to view the Grand Canon of the Colorado. 
The birds were particularly numerous in the vicinity of canons and 
arroyos, and in the patches of red cedar and pinon pine that stretch away 
from mountain-sides to the valley ground of the Colorado Plateau. At 
a water-hole about midway on my journey, it so happened that my tent 
was pitched beneath a cedar where, as I was soon satisfied by their vehe* 
ment scolding, a pair of the Wrens were protesting against such intrusion 
upon their privacy. In a little while, however, finding themselves un- 
molested they quieted down, resumed their song at intervals, and were 
soon after busily engaged in bringing insects to their family. Having 
explored a deserted Woodpecker’s hole, only to find it empty, I at length 
saw one of the birds disappear in the hollow end of a blasted horizontal 
bough about eight feet from the ground. The entrance was too narrow 
to admit my arm, but by breaking away some of the rotten wood I at 
length got a glimpse of the nest, and could just put a finger over the edge 
of it far enough to feel the little birds. I should have despoiled the 
household had there been eggs ; but as it was I refrained, and for a day 
or two was much interested in watching the happy, devoted pair, bubbling 
over with joyous music as they assiduously cared for their little family, 
now coming and going undisturbed by the group of men who shared the 
luxury of this fragrant cedar shade. This was June 7 ; returning a week 
afterward, the pretty spot was a “ banquet hall deserted”; so that I did 
not hesitate to break into the bough and remove the nest. It contained two 
dead young ones, upon which a tro,op of ugly carrion-beetles were rioting 
and feasting. The 'nest was quite unlike what a House Wren’s would have 
been under the same circumstances, having none of the trash with which 
these queer birds would have surrounded it; it rested upon the horizontal 
floor of the cavity, upon a bed of wood-mould and cedar-berries, about a 
foot from the ragged entrance of the hollow. Ib was a neat structure, 
about 4 inches across outside, by half as much in internal diameter, 
cupped to a depth of an inch and a half. Outside was a wall of small 
cedar twigs interlaced, and next came a layer of finely frayed inner bark 
strips from the same tree ; but the bulk of the nest consisted of matted 
