On numerous occasions, at the time of year when most females are gravid and are staying in nest burrows, I have discovered well formed nest burrows empty and seemingly deserted, with no female in evidence nearby. In some instances the female may have been out foraging or basking although she was not seen, and in other instances the female may have been killed by a predator or eliminated by some other accident. However, it seems that gravid females frequently do desert their original nest burrows, for one cause or another, and excavate new ones. Such desertions were noted many times in the females observed on the study area, where the disturbance from my own activities in raising the sheltering rocks may have caused shifts, but it was probably not the sole motivation. One female shifted approximately 120 feet, to excavate her second nest burrow in a site that was damper and more heavily shaded than the first site. This was in the notably dry summer of 1952. Most of the favorite sites under flat rocks in open situations, that were used in 1950 and 1951, were not occupied in 1952 or 1953, although several females did use them for original excavations, which were deserted before laying, as drought conditions developed. In the summers of 1952 and 1953 nests were difficult to find, and those discovered were on the average deeper and better protected than those found in other years. As compared with other North American lizards in general, _Eumeces fasciatus_ is notable for the relatively exposed and superficial situations chosen as nesting sites. However, it occurs in a climate of high humidity; in contrast, the great majority of our lizards live in arid climates where the eggs are in much greater danger of desiccation, and require better shelter to maintain the humidity at a sufficiently high level. Accounts in the literature and observations in the present study indicate that these skinks exercise a wide range of choice of nesting sites. Ruthven (1911:264) stated that in northern Michigan nests were usually in decaying logs; occasional nests were found in burrows in sand, but invariably decaying wood was present in or around at least part of the nest.