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78 THE CONDOR Vol. XX peared. All three of us had spent many a long hour endeavoring to locate a nest of this species, which is not especially abundant here, and I was much gratified in finding this, our first one. The call note of this bird is very similar to that of the Sacramento Towhee, which it replaces in these altitudes. On June 23 I collected my first nest of the Wright Flycatcher (Empidonax wrighti) with a set of four fresh eggs. I had located this nest previously on June 19, when it held a single egg. It was twelve feet up in a small Jeffrey. pine (see fig. 9), against the trunk, and was made of grasses, grayish fibres and webs, and lined with rootlets, grasses and feathers. The female parent was taken with the set and is now number 19112 in the University of California Museum of Ver- tebrate Zoology. On June 24 a nest of the American Water Ouzel was noted with three fresh eggs, and a Pacific Nighthawk's with a set of two, slightly incubated. The day following, my last afield, I climbed to a nest of the Cassin Purple Finch twenty-five feet up in a lodgepole pine, but found it to hold but two fresh eggs, although young of the year were now abundant. The day and trip fittingly closed with the finding of five eggs in a dainty little nest of the Western Ruby- crowned Kinglet, cleverly tucked away, almost out of sight, although but twelve feet up in a lodgepole pine. San Francisco, December 2, 1917. THE SCARLET IBIS IN TEXAS* By R.A. SELL WITH ONE PHOTO TIlE EXACT Status of the Scarlet Ibis (Guara rubra) in the avifauna of the ] Texas coast region has been a subject of speculation and good-natured con- troversy for at least twenty years. Much of this discussion has been among sportsmen, real estate agents, summer and winter resort boosters, and railway agents. While no data should be considered that does not emanate from a relia- ble source, it is about as easy to believe some noisy sportsman when he says that he has seen a Scarlet Ibis, as it is to believe a quasi-ornithologist who asserts that "the Scarlet Ibis is never to be seen on the Gulf Coast." Especially is this so when the former presents a mounted specimen and gives a vivid description of the circumstances under which he killed his bird. Positive evidence is based upon something. tangible. This may be a guess,

  • The writing of this article was stimulated by the comments of the Editor of 5l'!?e

Auk (vol. xxxiv, pp. 360,373) in which he conjectured that the informal reference in a preceding CONDOR article (vol. xix, pp. 43-46) to an occurrence of the Scarlet Ibis in Texas was made without the realization by either the author of that article or by the editor of THE CONDOR that the species had not been previously authenticated as be- longing to the avifauna of Texas. The Editor of 'rl?e Auk was correct in his surmise, and all his remarks were quite to the point. Never-the-less it is a satisfaction all around now to be able to present the subject of the occurrence of the Scarlet Ibis in Texas in rather full detail, thanks to the industry of l?r. Sell We would suggest that the Auk Editor might himself have been a bit more critical, in the case of the Colorado record of the "Harpy Ealgle"!--EDTTORS,