Page:Condor21(2).djvu/13

 Mar.,1919 BREEDING' HABITS OF THE RED CROSSBILL 59 of a mile, and in the heavy timber it was impossible to follow them with the eye on their return journey. The only methods that proved successful were to find a singing male and use the tree he perched in as a base, or else to walk slowly through the woods watching for birds carrying nesting material. Several good prospects were located by these methods, but they were in trees that were impossible to climb. An abortive attempt at nest building was observed on March 1. This was on the top of a ridge overlooking Okanagan Lake where there were a number of second growth firs in small groups. In this case, a red male was seen at the top of a thirty-foot heavily foliaged fir, and as I approached he gave the characteristic alarm note, but did not fly. After waiting in concealment for five minutes, a female was seen to fly out from a dense piece of foliage ten feet below the top and disappear in the timber on the hillside. In a few minutes she returned with some nesting material in her bill which she carried to the top of another tree 'and there dropped. She repeated this a second time and then both birds flew off and did not return during the hour that I' remained on the watch. On March 19, while hunting on the same ridge, a nest in process of con- struction was found, about one hundred yards distant, and I concluded that its owners were the same pair as had been under observation some two weeks earlier. The nest was saddled on a thin branch near the top of a forty foot Douglas fir about fourteen inches from the trunk and was so well concealed as to be all but invisible from below. The female was under observation for half an hour, while she carried material to the nest, mottiding the interior with her body after each trip, while her mate remained at the top of a nearby tree chirping excitedly. Absence from the district prevented my return to the nest until April 9 and it then contained a newly hatched chick, and two eggs on the point of hatching. The ground color of the eggs was pale .bluish green lightly flecked with lavender and with a wreath of lavender and ruddy-brown spots around the larger end. No measurements of the eggs were taken and unfortunately I 'was not successful in preparing them. The nest which is a very handsome one was presented to the Provincial Museum at Victoria. The body of the nest is composed of black tree moss (Alectoria jubata), dry grass and weed stalks; the outside, of fine fir twigs, those selected for the rim being decorated with little tufts .of vivid green lichen (Evernia vulpina). The inside is well felted with black tree moss and contains a few pieces of fine grass and one breast feather of a led-tailed Hawk. It is 110 min. in diameter with an outside depth of 60 min. and an inside depth of 30 min. On March 18, a red male was heard singing from the top of a second growth fir thirty feet high, one of a group on a steep hillside overlooking Oka- naga Lake. At my approach he called excitedly until I reached the tree, when he flew some distance away. The nest was in the tree on which the male had been singing and was found without difficulty. It was on a lower branch ten feet above the ground and ten feet out from the trunk, in plain view from the ground. The female was sitting on one egg and did not leave the nest until the limb was shaken as I ascended the tree. Two more eggs were laid by March 20, and, rather than risk having them destroyed by a squirrel or a Magpie, I collected the nest and the female. On dissecting the bird a fourth egg, too much crushed to preserve, was found in the oviduct. The eggs measure, in millimeters, 15x20, 15x20, 14x19, and are