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 88 THE CONDOR Vol. XIII unobstructed. Though this 'rotch was about twenty feet from the foot of the tree, the bank rising steeply from .the stream passed not far from the nesting site. On this sloping bank my companion and myself xvere able to rest and watch every move of the birds. The nest was darker than the tree trunk but matched the shadow in the crotch. It was made entirely of fine plant fibers. The location of the nest re- minded me of one of the Western Gnatcatcher which I once watched which was built on the side of a sycamore tree in much the stone way, the chief difference being that in the latter case the supports were new leafy shoots. It was about 8:40 when we sat down to watch these little flycatchers. At that time both birds fed. one having a moth in its bill which was fed to several young. After feeding, the female sat on a near-by limb and guarded. The male fed four times in six minutes, resting on the edge of the nest one-half minute after the last Fig. 33. NI$T OF THI WESTIRN FLCATCHIR feeding. As the bird fed we could just see tiny bills above the nest. There seemed to be three of them. For the next eight minutes the female fed, making three trips and resting on the edge of the nest a short time. Then the male fed three times, then for thirteen minutes both birds fed in all seven times, then they seemed to divide the labor again, the female feeding for a time, then the male doing all the feeding. Perhaps I am wrong in this conclusion, but in the three hours and forty minutes that we watched them, I came to the conclusion that it was their way to take turn about in the feeding. Sometimes the'watching bird would ba seen perched in a tree not far away; at other times it was out of sight. During the three hours and forty minutes the young were fed sixty-three times, the female feeding thirty-three times to the male's thirty, the 'shortest interval being one minute, the longest ten and one-half minutes.