4 tating his call, as I had done 'often, he answered me from one of the very pines I was watching. Two or three times I made him repeat it, but his voice seemed low and sleepy now. He had come home to roost, or the next tree to it. It was too late to search but I went back to camp feeling quite sure I had outwitted him. 'l'he next day I found the nest and a hard climb I had before I got aboYe the cone upon which the nest was built and looked in upon the four dainty creamy white eggs. The nest and its situation are shown in the illustration. THE CONDOR Vol. IV ual. challenge, and many a brilliant fight she must have had in defense of her little home, for I saw some of them and for dash and spirit and effectiveness they could hardly be outdone. Eternal vigilance was certainly the price of success in her case. Nor did it take her mate long to come to the rescue at the least disturbance. Their soft pil referred to has surpris- ing carrying powers. It is sometimes audible at a distance of ?5o yards. And I know of none other of the flycatchers having a greater variety of notes than this obscure little bird. Every now and then the male, particular- ly, exhibited some trait or trick to challenge my in- terest and admiration. He is a ventriloquist. Almost invariably his voice seems to proceed from the lower branches of the tree, or from the vicinity of the ground beneath, when in fact the author sits on one of the topmost branches of a tall pine or fir, and being so small and less in- clined than other flycatch- ers to select an exposed dead branch, he is often hard to locate. In both I899 and ?9oo, I found this same flycatcher breeding in a virgin forest of pines and firs, among the trees surrounding a little "park", or treeless, open space, of which there are many in these mount- ains. It was about three nailes above the location of Pho,, ?,. ?e. o. ?.,,?,-z..th e- nest described abox?e, BUFF-BREASTED FLYCATCHER'S I?EST ON CONE. and within a very short They afterward built on the top of a horizontal lilnb of a large pine, sixteen feet out from the stem of the tree, in plain sight of the hawks and jays (6),- anocilla s. macrolop?a) and for jays these mountains are the worst I have seen. R?ght out in plain sight that dainty little female sat all day long, a perpet- distance of the summit of the range, from which one can get a good glimpse of New Mexico, only a few miles dis- tant. But not one of the nests found in this upper location was built upon a limb, but all against the trunks of the trees, 2o to 35 feet from the ground, in two cases in the angle of a short dead
