VOL. III. | Habits of Palmer's Thrasher. 245 
evening, perched on the topmost branch of a cholla, he is always in 
tune, and while his notes may perhaps be less varied than his more 
favored kinsman, it is none the less bold and commanding, and but 
for the ubiquity of his rival in song would be in demand as a cage 
bird. 
Southern Arizona, notwithstanding its great mountain chains, if 
viewed from an elevated position, presents the appearance of a vast 
plain that ends only where the horizon seems to touch the earth, 
with here and there a mountain range small in comparison with the 
surrounding plain, set down upon it. Between the mountains lie 
immense mesas and valleys, as a whole, timberless and waterless, 
but covered with nutritious grasses, great cacti belts and other 
vegetation of curious growth. Here, then, is the home of the palm- _ 
ert, and in the cholla, beset with countless spines, it builds its nest 
and rears its young. ' This class of cacti, of which the foregoing cut 
gives but a faint conception of its terrors, is virtually impenetrable 
to man and beast. Ten million of cambric needles, set on hundreds 
of loosely jointed spindles, woven so closely together as to appar- 
ently defy the penetration of a body however small, but the thrashers 
goin and out and up and through them with the ease of water 
running through a sieve. In some convenient fork, on a limb_ 
against the bole of the bush, or in a cavity formed by the pendent 
stems of the plant, the nest is most commonly built. All the spines 
in the vicinity of the nest are pulled off for the better protection of 
the young. This does not, however, always save them as I have 
found them once in a while, tangled and dead in the terrible burs. 
The external nest of the Palmer’s thrasher is made of thorn twigs 
avergaing in length about eight or nine inches,seldom shorter but fre- 
quently much longer. Almost invariably they are lined with a 
species of wire grass, but sometimes thay go astray and use other 
material. In external depth the nests vary according to the whims 
of the bird and the requirements of the site chosen, but generally 
they average trom seven to ten inches. The inner cavity at its 
greatest width near the top measures from four to four and one-half 
inches, bottom one-half an inch to an inch narrower, rounded or 
flat, and from three to three and one-half inches deep. However 
sparsely the walls of the nest may be lined, the bottom is always” 
thickly padded with dried grass into which the eggs frequently sink 
one-half their depth, and in this condition hatch. There are, of 
