158 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
instant within focus. Hoping, however, to obtain 
a still better pose, I refrained from exposing the 
plate; the bird flew off, and no second oppor- 
tunity offered itself. 
The third generation of Saddleback were still in 
the shell. | 
During the first week of November one or two 
couples of paired birds were incubating eggs, 
another pair possessed a single egg, others were 
building, whilst the hens in many cases were 
still being courted by proffered food, spread tail, 
and fluttering wings. 
Of the five nests under observation containing 
eggs or young, four were within a few feet of the 
ground, whilst all were built in deep shade. The 
first. discovered, built into the fork of an iron- 
wood and screened with polypod and the shrubby 
growths of several epiphytes, was a dozen feet 
above the dark gritty soil. A second nest was 
found two feet above the peat, placed in the 
long cavity of a prone tupari. Hxtraneous and 
parallel to this cavity ran an eroded bar of sound 
wood, which to a great extent concealed the 
sitting bird. Light was still further cut off by 
the proximity of many dead logs. of considerable 
girth. A third nest at an elevation of three feet 
was built in a similar cavity. In this case, how- 
\ever, the fallen tree was a large ironwood, several 
of whose surface rootlets passed athwart the 
