678 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
In the spring migration it was seen at State College, May 7, 1915 (Merrill).— 
W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —In tall weeds, vines, bushes, willows, and fruit trees; made of grasses 
and rootlets. Eggs: 3 to 4, pale greenish blue or bluish white, unspotted. 
Food. —In summer the insect food amounts to about twice that of the vegetable. 
It includes the purslane caterpillar, which sometimes attacks garden and fruit 
crops; the cotton cutworm, which* attacks both cotton and tomatoes; destructive 
bugs such as squash bugs, stink bugs, tree hoppers, and cicadas; injurious beetles, 
including June bugs and their white grub larvae; weevils, leaf beetles, wood borers, 
and click beetles; but most important of all, grasshoppers, to the extent of 27.2 
per cent of the total food, being also fed to the nestlings. Of the vegetable food, 
6 per cent is wild fruit, 14.25 per cent grain and 18.05 per cent weed seed. “It 
consumes almost five times as great a bulk of injurious insects as of grain. Without 
doubt the farmer could afford to pay for the destruction of these insects with grain 
in the reverse ratio and yet make a large profit by the bird’s services” (McAtee). 
General Habits. —In California, where Mr. Tyler found the 
California Blue Grosbeak, he says that“ while tramping around in late 
spring among the rank weeds and grass along the ditches or at the edge 
of tule ponds, a bird lover in the San Joaquin Valley is often attracted 
by a sudden explosive &pink from a large-billed, blue-coated bird, and 
very often this call is answered in a more subdued pink by a brown- 
colored bird, otherwise quite similar in appearance to her mate 77 (1913, 
p. 88). In New Mexico and especially Arizona, Mr. Henshaw r found 
the Western Blue Grosbeak “on heavily brushed streams from the time 
they made their appearance at the base of the mountains till . . . 
the waters finally disappeared in the thirsty sands of the plains below. 77 
The song, as he describes it, at its finest is possessed of much sweetness 
of tone, but lacks the full rich mellowness and variety of modulation so 
conspicuous in the songs of the other grosbeaks. 
At Mesilla Park, w T here it is the commonest grosbeak, Professor 
Merrill notes that its “cheery song can be heard from orchards, groves, 
bosques, mesquites, thickets, and sunflower patches, 77 and in any of 
these its nest may be found. The young begin flying the first week 
in July and the birds leave in October, returning late in April (MS). 
In the city of Albuquerque, it is pleasant to hear, the Blue Grosbeak 
has been found by Mr. Ligon feeding young in a cottonwood on North 
Third Street. 
About Santa Fe, Mr. Jensen has discovered, the Blue Grosbeak, 
like the Crested Flycatcher, uses cast-off snake skin for its nest. In 
twenty-three nests located during a period of five years, twenty-one 
had snake skin as a foundation. 
LAZULI BUNTING: Passerma amoena (Say) 
Plate 74 
Description. — Male: Length (skins) 5-5.5 inches, wing 2.8-3, tail 2.1-2.3, 
bill .4. Female: Length (skins) 5-5.4 inches, wing 2.G-2.8, tail 2-2.3, bill .4. Bill 
small, under mandible deeper than upper. Adult male: Upper parts bright tur- 
