June 27th. Poni, the west thrasher, or perhaps another one, was singing at 5:20 A.M. His earlier promise of succeeding Brownie seems to have faded away. He has been very quiet during the past few days. At 7:10 A.M. Rhody came to the cage, picked up a twig and carried it to the nest in the glass house. After this he followed for a mouse and treated it with full honors. At 10 A.M., Mr. Sampson present, R reappeared, picked up a branchlet, presented it at the mirror and carried it up to the top of the lath house near the cage and placed it carefully on the roof where a branch of an acacia rests. I went and had a look. It was the first one. He came down for more. At 10:30 he was still at it. Is this 9-37? 11:45. At 11:30 I went out to observe events. Rhody was just going up and into the glass house car- rying nothing. His new nest had a dozen or so large, many-forked branchlets in it and is easily seen. In a minute or two R came out of the glasshouse, went horizontally across it and into a pine with interlacing branches; up the pine and to a towhee nest. (I knew it was there but had not actually seen it before). I could not see what he did other than to put his bill down into it and investigate. Soon he came down. As there was no bill-wiping, he had doubtless had taken nothing from it. A short rest, and he was back at work on nest 9-37. This is about 20 feet from the cage and about the same distance from the glass-house. I am inclined to think that it is the weather conditions of the moment that influenced his selection: hot, but a delight- fully cool breeze at the site and full shade in the morning, but... 12:10. R still working. He has been at it ever since last recorded observation. 2 P.M. Rhody is still at his new job, for some reason or other, preferring a short, soft, fluffy, gray-green composite weed at the moment. He has been busy since last record, except for an interlude ushered in by the arrival of a new snake. This one appeared in the open by the lath house while R was carrying a twig a few feet away. I caught the snake (gopher) and R came to look at it, his interest appearing purely academic. I let it go (1:20) and it went into the shade under a camellia. There R went to inspect and put on a mild, but pretty display. I went to get the movie camera (Meanwhile having measured the snake exactly--it was 3 feet 6 inches long). On returning I found R back at work. The captive snake was now placed alongside the other one. Nothing much happened. R continued to gather material near them, occasion- ally pausing to watch them. They are now about 20 feet apart, in the shade. 3:20 P.M. Rhody has knocked off (3:15) work, at least temporarily. A stiffish breeze (one of the buts of third para- graph above) is sweeping over the lath-house roof and it is cooler than this morning (79 in the court; 82 in the inner cage in "double shade"). R's first act during this rest was to sun his back in the open pose. This is a divergence from his established norm, due perhaps to the cool breeze's not having yet had time to reduce the temperature at his sunning post--which is sheltered--to that on top of the windy lath roof. In other words: it is not so cool as he thinks it is. At these temperatures he should be using the spread eagle pose followed by retreat to the shade. I did not wait to see him change, but came in to make this note. R starts nest 9-37 (?)