62 BULLETIN OF THE COOPER ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. the foliage of cypress limbs spreading over the ground, more commonly under myrtle, less commonly among ivy grow- ing along the ground, but always in a partly shaded. spot. One nest was un- der the drooping leaves of an artichoke plant and one beside a lauristinus hedge among a bed of verbenas was subjected to almost all the sun. In all these ground-nesting cases the bird scratches a hollow in the sandy soil or leaf mould about an inch deep before bringing building material. One nest, four feet from the ground, was fashioned into the rather flat top of a partially decayed oak stub on a live oak, the trunk of the tree and the stub being overgrown with ivy. It contained a set of four eggs and as near as I remember, fifteen eggs of the California Partridge. The female ? towhee was incubating on top of the pile. The partridge occasionally depos- its one or two eggs in a towhee's nest built on the ground. One nest on the ground contained three towhee's eggs and eighteen partridge's, the towhee having abandoned the nest after six or eight partridge eggs were deposited in it. One peculiarly situated nest was almost under a log lying under an oak tree; it also contained one partridge egg. Several years ago I found a high nest, nine feet up in a large cypress tree and several others about this dis- tance from the ground, among oak branches intergrown with wild black- berry vines. while in I898 I noted a nest twelve feet up in the same cypress tree. No eggs were laid in it. One nest, one foot off the ground, was in a geranium bush, one in a cypress hedge five feet up, one, unused, in a small ap- ple tree eight feet up and several in low thick garden shrubs, while others were on top of low clumps of wild blackberry vines so that the leaves af- forded concealment and protection from the sun and in rare cases trees afforded no shade. The earliest nesting date is March 27, i888, the next earliest, April 4, ?896, with complete sets, yet April 2o is none too early for first sets. Sets of fresh eggs in June and July are indicative of second or third sets, as I have exper- imented to demonstrate this by taking the first and second sets of particular pairs of Oregon Towhees causing them to build and lay three times in one sea- son. As an instance of this towhee's devotion to a particular spot, I removed in one season three nests and sets of one pair of birds and an average of two sets a season in other seasons from the same pair for four or five years in suc- cession. Their nest was always within twenty feet of the center of a lo?v growth of wild blackberry vines under a large oak tree. This experiment also goes to demonstrate that oologists do not, by taking a set of eggs, destroy that number of birds, as some people think it does. I can quote instances of other species of birds producing a new nest and set of eggs in a remarkably short period after being robbed of the first or even the second set, if it will be of any help to the oological fraternity. The towhees require from two to three weeks after being robbed to produce a new domicile and eggs; some other spe- cies less time. The second nests usually contain less material than the first, and as an example of this assertion and to demonstrate the devotion of the birds to a certain area of their choice, in x897 I took a second set from under a small blackberry vine in a wooded pasture and the third set was found three weeks later about sixty feet distant from the site of the first under a very small vine where the grass had been entirely eaten down and was very scant in material. I can never think otherwise than that Major Bendire was correct in asserting that eggs of individual birds in consecu- tive sets bear marked resemblance to each other, for, by taking into account the similarity of a late set to the prece- ding set of the same year, both sets tak- en nearly from the same spot, the evi- dence is almost conclusive, not alone in 'the case of the Oregon Towhee but with many other birds, and to make it conclusive, in my opinion at least, I have noticed that eggs taken from year to year from the same small area occupied by one pair of birds, bear unmistakable resemblance in shape as well as in coloration and style of mark- ing. In a large series, jt?st as they come, the shape, coloration and mark- ing of different sets are remarkably
