Mar., 1901 
THE CONDOR 
35 
more suitable site and then the work 
of tearing down would begin and it 
would be moved piece-meal to the new 
place and until scarcely a vestige of the 
nest remained in the old location. The 
third and final resting place for this 
nest was in the main crotch of a small 
white oak bush at such a height that I 
could just reach the nest by standing 
on tip toe. The eggs, four in number, 
were deposited in Ma}^ and I soon after 
gave the birds a chance to build another 
nest, which chance they availed them- 
selves of, for they reared a brood that 
season in June, while they probably 
gave the jaj^s credit for the robbery. 
The nest was built of exceedingly 
fine and soft material, a few small 
feathers being the coarsest stuff used. 
Very thin strips of vegetable vellum 
and rotten bark fibres made up the bulk 
of the nest. The edges at the top were 
drawn in, making the diameter of the 
opening less than that of the center of 
the cavity-the cavity being deep and 
snug-looking. The outside of the nest 
was laced over with cobwebs and 
spangled with lichens from the oaks 
which were bound on with webs also. 
The selection of lichens varied consid- 
erably with the pairs of birds, .some 
choosing dark brown ones with black 
backs which gave the nest a rich but 
subdued cast while other nests were 
paler or brighter owing to the use of 
lighter-colored lichens-the usual kind 
being pale green or .silver gray in color. 
Most of the nests I found in Lake Co. 
were in small scrub oaks, but two were 
taken from large limbs of fair-sized oak 
trees. May seems to be the best time 
for collecting nests in this locality. 
During the spring of ’97 I found the 
Western Gnatcatcher ver^' abundant in 
Tuolumne and Calaveras counties but 
saw none above 3500 feet elevation. 
Near Stent in Tuolumne Co., I 
secured nests in oaks, pines and one in 
an alder tree. My experience here 
destroyed all the imaginary limits I had 
placed on the nesting sites of this 
species, for I found nests in many kinds 
of trees, on the ends of horizontal limbs, 
at the base of limbs, in large and small 
crotches, and at heights varying from 
five to fifty feet from the ground. 
Most of the records of sets are for May. 
One nest was in the main crotch of an 
alder tree 30 feet from the ground, the 
tree being in a creek bed. This is the 
only record I have of a nest near water 
and I made a sketch of it as being a 
rather unusual site. Another rather 
pretty but quite typical nest was 
saddled to a small horizontal oak limb 
about six feet above the ground. It 
was made in between the stub of a 
small twig and a live twig carrying a 
bunch of leaves that hung over the nest 
like a parasol. 
Perhaps the most unique nesting site 
ever seen of this species was the top of 
a pine cone in a sprawling bull ifine. 
The cone was on a lonely limb fully 
thirty feet above the ground at the butt 
of the tree, but as the tree hung over a 
gully the nest was double that distance 
vertically from the ground. I made 
rough note-book sketches of several of 
these nests which I finished up at home. 
During May 1900, while working in 
connection with the Duchess mine in 
Calaveras Co., I found a ne.st with half- 
grown young of this species in a live 
oak that had been killed by fire, as had 
all the trees on that mountain side. 
The nest was about 15 feet up in a 
crotch of one of the limbs and the 
young left it about the last of May. On 
June 7 I took a nest and five fre.sh eggs 
from, I think, this same pair in a loca- 
tion quite similar to the finst and about 
50 feet away from it. These two ne.st.s 
are the fir.st I have ever seen that were 
devoid of lichens. On account of the 
fire all timber was dead and there were 
no lichens. The nests however were 
decorated with bits of burnt bark which 
made a rather poor substitute for the 
usual decoration, as far as looks go. 
I think this circumstance of covering 
the ne.st with material similar in color 
to the tree in which the nest is situated 
is a means of protection rather than 
