78 
THE CONDOR 
I Vol. Ill 
their nesting habits, so I nearly wreck- 
ed my first set which I came upon by 
chance. We were walking along slow- 
ly and upon passing a decayed stump I 
struck idly at a rough opening in the 
side wdth my machete. It was a rude 
hole which looked as if it might have 
served a woodpecker sometime in the 
remote past, so my surprise may be 
imagined. The whole front of the ex- 
cavation crumbled away under the blow 
revealing the two pearly white eggs on 
the verge of the nest. 
The bird had not been seen to leave 
the nest, so I replaced the eggs careful- 
ly and fitted back the pieces which had 
been struck from the front of the nest, 
holding them in place by a piece of vine 
which I wrapped about the stump 
several times. A few days later by ap- 
proaching the nest cautiously the bird 
flushed, proving to be Trogon ca/igatas. 
She had again settled down in her 
wrecked home as though nothing had 
happened. This was April 25, 1898; 
eggs fresh. 
Another set of two eggs was found 
May 29, [898 with embryos begun, near 
the edge of the woods in a decayed 
stump fifteen feet up. Another set of 
two eggs on May 12, 1899, incubation 
fresh; opening to nest, eight feet up. 
The nest is always a rough hollow in 
the most decayed or crumbling, punky 
stumps. The hollow is usually six or 
eight inches in diameter and is but a 
few inches low'er than the opening, 
with no lining. 
The Mexican name of the trogon is 
Cabo, which sounds a little like his call, 
consisting of two notes, the first a little 
higher than the second. It may be 
imitated by a low wdiistle, and sounds 
but little lower when one is 150 yards 
from the bird than when under the tree 
from which the sound proceeds. 
When one is near to the bird, the 
sound seems to come first from one di- 
rection and then another, and the bird 
may readily be thought to be fifty feet 
away instead of at hand. The trogon’s 
nest was the last find of the day, and at 
about 2 o’clock the inevitable thunder- 
storm came up, sending us back to the 
plantation, a water-soaked party of col- 
lectors. 
WWW 
Song of Zonotrichia coronata. 
I N REPLY to Mr. Lyman Belding’s 
query in The Condor (Vol. 3, No. 
2.), I can state positively that the 
Golden-crowned Sparrow {Zonotrichia 
coronata) is not an altogether silent bird 
in this neighborhood during its winter 
residence. Its song, if it may be digni- 
fied by such a title, consists of three 
notes given in a descending scale with 
intervals of thirds, or to express it differ- 
ently sol, mi, do. The sound is that of a 
very high whistle, in fact so high that 
in imitating the bird it is necessary for 
me to make it with the tongue against 
the roof of the mouth, the lips apart. 
The notes are given very .softly and yet 
are penetrating. 
I have been accustomed to hearing 
this song since my boyhood, and yet 
until quite recently ascribed it to Gam- 
bel’s Sparrow' {Z. leucophrys gambelii). 
One evening at the California Academy 
of Sciences Mr. Chas. A. Keeler imitated 
this song and claimed that it was that of 
Z. coronata. A discussion on this point 
led me to observe these two species very 
closely during the past winter, and I 
now acknowledge that Mr. Keeler was 
right and I wrong. 
The song is given when the bird is 
either on the top of a low bush or with- 
in the bush near the outside. As the 
two species invariably flock together 
during their residence in this neighbor- 
hood, and as it very difficult to dis- 
tinguish the immature ganibeli from 
coronata at any distance, when both 
kinds are banded together, especially 
when partially hidden by foliage, a 
great deal of watching was necessary to 
enable me to establish the identity of 
the songster. Many an attempt failed 
through my not being able even to dis- 
cover which individual of the flock was 
