38 
THE CONDOR 
I VOL. V 
Of these, four pink-sided juncos, three red-breasted nuthatches, and two mountain 
chickadees were fresh enough to be skinned, and were preserved as specimens. 
Two days later, the only fresh corpses were a mouse, a grasshopper, and a Rocky 
Mountain creeper, which latter was preserved, having just died. During the en- 
suing week no additional birds were asphyxiated. 
Although uuable to estimate the number of birds that perished in the caves 
adjacent to the Mammoth Hot Springs during the pa.st season, I am of the opinion 
that the number reached into the hundreds if not thousands. Birds were found 
dead in about thirty different caves and hollows about the “formation,” between 
Snow Pass and the Mammoth Hot .Springs Hotel, near which latter the lowest 
“bird cave” was discovered. At the suggestion of Mrs. Charles B. Byrne, who 
visited the St . gian caves in 1902, 1 requested the Park Superintendent to have 
the most important caves provided with wire screens for the purpose of keeping 
birds from entering them, and this will doubtless be done before another season, 
as the Superintendent and his wife are much interested in the matter. 
Following is a list of the .species of birds which I found dead in the “Stygian” 
caves, from April to December, 1902: 
1. Pica pica hudsonica (Sab.). Black-billed Magpie. 
2. Nucifraga Columbiana (Wils.). Clarke Nutcracker. 
3. Carpodacus cassini Baird. Cassin Purple Finch. 
4. Spinas pinics (Wils.). Pine Siskin. 
3. Punco mearnsi Ridgw. Pink-sided Junco. 
6. Oreospiza chlorura (.Aud.). Green-tailed Towhee. 
7. Piranga ludoidciana (Wils.). Louisiana Tanager. 
8. Vireo gilvus (Vieill.). Warbling Vireo. 
9. Dendroica auduboni {'Vownx'd). Audubon Warbler. 
10. Opororfiis tolniiei (Townsend). Macgillivray Warbler. 
11. Certhia americana niontana (Ridgvvay). Rocky Mountain Creeper. 
12. Sitta carolmeyisis nelsoni .Vlearns. Rocky Mountain Nuthatch. 
13. Sitia canadensis Linn. Red-breasted Nuthatch. 
14. Paras gambeli Ridgwa3\ .Mountain Chickadee. 
15. .Wyadestes toivnsendii (Aud.). Townsend Solitaire. 
16. Merala migratoria propinqua Ridgwa^^ Western Robin. 
Some Unusual Nests of the Bullock Oriole. 
HV C. S. SHARP, ESCONDIDO, CAI.. 
The popular idea of an oriole’s nest .seems to be tliat it is always pensile, sup- 
ported wholly from the top and the lower part, large and purse-shaped, hanging 
free to sway with everv breeze, f have never seen an illustration of one that was 
not of this description. 
In my observations of nests of the Bullork oriole {Icterus ballo'rki) I have found 
two distinct types, and presume the same forms are found in the nests of its nearest 
eastern relative {ga/ba/a), the nests of others of the genus hardly coming into com- 
parison. 
These two types are the truly pensile and what is generally termed the semi- 
pen, si le form, although, in reality, it is not pensile at all. With the latter 
