432 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
water, in which the young were being fed from May 26 to June 6. On a 
branch of the Concho, a nest lined with wool and containing eggs was 
found on a bowlder, May 26; and at Montoya, another, in a cut bank, 
lined with wool, contained three eggs on June 19, perhaps a second nest 
of the year. A nest found by Doctor Wetmore at Lake Burford was 
safely placed in a deep narrow arroyo on a shelf three feet from the 
bottom, where the overhanging bank concealed it from view. It was 
made of a few bits of weed stems and rootlets bound together by spider 
webbing and felted with a mass of sheep’s wool gathered from the sur¬ 
rounding sagebrush. Occasionally he saw the birds “hovering over open 
flats in much the same manner as the Mountain Bluebird” (1920a, p. 
401). 
Although the usual call note of the Say Phoebe is a plaintive phee-eur, 
during the nesting season it has a short twittering warble, used, Professor 
Merrill says, whenever a pair meet, flying or at home, and after court¬ 
ship while brooding and raising the young. As late as November we 
heard one delivering a sustained series of notes, a praiseworthy belated 
effort, if not a highly musical performance. 
Near Fort Wingate in July, Mr. Iienshaw found the Say Phoebe for 
the most part on open sagebrush plains or on open and rocky hillsides 
scantily clothed with brush and a few scattered pinyon trees (1875, p. 
349). In migration, Doctor Heermann wrote, “it prefers the deep valleys 
bordered by high hills, but is found also on the open plains, where, 
perched on the stalk of some dead weed or on a prominent rock, it darts 
forth in pursuit of its prey, to return again to its point of observation” 
(1859, p. 37). 
At the Carlsbad Cave this Phoebe is called “the Cave Bird,” for, 
to cite the memory of the oldest inhabitant, it has nested for some twenty 
years down in the natural shaft of the great cave. Smaller neighboring 
caves also have their nests. Before the nesting season, in March and 
April, 1924, Mr. Bailey found that a pair of the birds regularly entered 
the shaft of the main cave at night for the shelter of a warm roost safe 
from outside enemies. The great numbers of moths and other insects, 
which also took advantage of the warm shaft, were doubtless an added 
attraction. 
Though some of the Say Phoebes winter in New Mexico, the nature 
of the food of these useful birds, which Professor Merrill well denom¬ 
inates “ efficient fly and diurnal moth traps,” necessitates their depar¬ 
ture when the insects have gone; but a flock that Mr. Ligon happened 
on at San Acacia, January 12, 1919, was making a brave stand, actually 
sitting on ice catching insects where, except for a few airholes, the water 
was covered with a solid layer several inches thick. As much of its 
insect food contains hard indigestible parts, the Phoebe, like the hawks, 
