made of roots, moss 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 surrounding the house. When 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 variation in size, shape and markings but an average egg resembles those of our Black-headed Grosbeak.
The Black-headed Saltator (Saltator atricepts) is a representative bird of Chiapas and is found mostly 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 nest is loosely constructed of twigs and leaves and two eggs are always laid, being blue with heavy black markings at the larger end, similar to the eggs of the Redwinged Blackbird. The nesting season 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 nest 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 (Crotophaga sulcirostris) rather common, nesting according to Davie as gcod birds should. I found sets varying 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 as 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 intermedius) 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.
Scott's Oriole at San Diego, Cal.
SCOTT'S ORIOLE (Icterus parisorum) is not rare on the desert slope of the munntains in San Diego County in the migration, but it is very seldom seen between the mountains and the sea here. I saw two males in April, one of these being in the eucalyptus 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 identification. 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.
