94 
THH CONDOR 
1 Vol. HI 
made of roots, mess and mud, 
well packed together, and owing 
to the daily showers, a nest generally 
raises a good crop of grass and weeds 
around its edges. The nest is placed 
commonly in coffee bushes, bunches of 
bananas or any low shrub at from eight 
to twelve feet from the ground. The 
extremes which I noted were two and 
twenty feet respectively. There were 
as many as 50 nests in the 80 acres sur- 
rounding the house. Whert the young 
are just beginning to fly the native 
small boy goes out and captures the 
little fellows by the dozen, using them 
to make bird stew. Gray’s Robin lays 
two or three eggs, and although I have 
examined hundreds of nests I have 
never found four. There is great varia- 
tion in size, shape and markings but an 
average egg resembles those of our 
Black-headed Grosbeak. 
The Black-headed Saltator (Sa/tator 
atriceps) is a representative bird of 
Chiapas and is found mostl}’ in flocks in 
the wooded portion of the lowlands and 
foothills, flitting about in the bushes 
and tree-tops chattering harshly all the 
time. The ne.st is looseh^ constructed 
of twigs and leaves and two eggs are 
always laid, being blue with heavy 
black markings at the larger end, simi- 
lar to the eggs of the Redwinged Black- 
bird. The nesting sea.son extends from 
the latter part of April to the latter 
part of July. 
Synallasis erythorthorax is a great 
deal like a little wren with nothing 
much to distinguish him but his nesting 
habits, but here he rivals anything in 
the feathered kingdom. The ne.st is 
usually placed from four to ten feet up 
in dense bushes and is composed of dry 
twigs four or five inches long. The 
bird makes a pile of these sticks a foot 
in diameter leaving a cavity of three or 
four inches diameter inside. After this 
is done a horizontal tunnel two inches 
in diameter is made, leading away from 
the nest. ' At about a foot from the 
nest at the end of the tunnel another 
pile of twigs is constructed through 
which the tunnel turns upward for a 
few inches. This is the opening of the 
nest upon which the male roosts while 
the female is setting. The inner cavity 
is lined with leaves and three light blue 
eggs, rarely two, are laid. 
I found the Grove-billed Ani {Croto- 
phaga sjildrostris) rather common, nest- 
ing according to Davie as good birds 
should. I found setsvarjdng from four 
to ten eggs and was told by Indians that 
20 eggs were sometimes found in a nest, 
from which it appears that this species 
has the same habit gfs C. ani of several 
birds using the same nest. I found one 
nest of C. sulcirostris built on the top of 
a nest of Giraud’s Flycatcher. 
The Central American House Wren 
( Troglodytes intennedins) seemed like 
an old friend to me, flitting about and 
singing like our wrens at home. They 
reared their young in dark holes under 
the rafters of the house and barn and in 
the hollow trunks of trees. I found 
one nest in a hollow stump on the 
ground. The bird lays but three or 
four eggs, which are lighter than those 
of our common house wren. This little 
fellow and the Turkey Vulture were 
seemingly the only old friends I had in 
Mexico. 
® W “t® 
Scott’s Oriole at San Diego, Cal. 
S COTT’S ORIOLE {Icterus pari- 
sorum) is not rare on the desert 
slope of the mountains in San 
Diego County in the migration, but it is 
very seldom seen between the moun- 
tains and the sea here. I saw two males' 
in xLpril, one of these being in the euca- 
lyptus grove in the city park of San 
Diego. The song of this male was 
peculiar in some ways, so I followed 
him around to make sure of the identi- 
fication. Last Sunday (June 2) I 
heard the same song in another part of 
the grove, a few hundred yards from 
where I saw the bird in April. This 
would indicate that he had become a 
summer resident here and probably had 
a mate. I know of no breeding record 
of this species in the coast region of 
San Diego County. 
San Diego, Cal. Frank Stephens. 
