. The birds of California : a complete, scientific and popular account of the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. Birds; Birds. The Cactus Wren. Taken near San Diego YOUNG CACTUS WRENS as a peck measure, sometimes a perfect sphere, but oftener an ellipsoid, resting on one side and with an entrance in one end. Whoever he was that first called it "purse-shaped" had either too much imagination or none at all. Is a foot-ball purse-shaped? Yet every compiler in recent literature has dutifully repeated this epithet and will, I suppose, to the end of time. Purse- shaped
. The birds of California : a complete, scientific and popular account of the 580 species and subspecies of birds found in the state. Birds; Birds. The Cactus Wren. Taken near San Diego YOUNG CACTUS WRENS as a peck measure, sometimes a perfect sphere, but oftener an ellipsoid, resting on one side and with an entrance in one end. Whoever he was that first called it "purse-shaped" had either too much imagination or none at all. Is a foot-ball purse-shaped? Yet every compiler in recent literature has dutifully repeated this epithet and will, I suppose, to the end of time. Purse- shaped it certainly is not, for it is neither pendent, nor wide- mouthed, nor open at the top— nor even flat, as most of our purses are—only hollow7. But one might well wish for a purse or even a treasure-chest of such a size. The nesting ball, whatever its shape, is composed externally of fine twigs, chiefly those of the arte- misia (A. dracunculoides, etc.), dried flower pedicels, and stiff grasses, all of which, being unyielding in character, impart a bristly, dishevelled appearance to the outside, especially in that portion surrounding the entrance hole, which is purposely left "out of ; The body of the structure is made of finer, more tractable materials,—grasses, rootlets, dried flower-heads, bark-strips, etc., artfully coiled; while the capacious hollow is heavily lined with the shredded inner bark of weeds, spider cocoons, and feathers, wherever the last-named are obtainable. The eggs, four or five in number, are quite the handsomest of the wren kind, pale ochraceous salmon as to ground-color, but so finely dotted with orange- cinnamon, mikado brown, or russet, as often to appear of a uniform vinaceous cinnamon. There is a tendency toward annulation of color about the larger end, and this ring is notably near the apex, sometimes including it. The stock host of this bird in the desert patches of the San Diego-Ven- tura district and on the margin of the Col
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1923
