BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, ETC. 295 



Re mark's. -- Dr. Allen has recorded two females showing- great variation 

 in plumage both with throat and breast black, and one with whole head 

 blackish like yearling males, the other with head like the ordinary adult 

 female. 



Distribution. Resident in Lower Sonoran zone from western Texas to 

 California, and from southern parts of Utah and Nevada south to Lower 

 California and Mexico. 



Nest. - - Woven of grass, yucca fibers, horsehair, cotton, and string when 

 available, placed usually in yuccas, but sometimes in other trees. Egg* ' 

 2 to 4, pale blue, blotched and streaked with browns and grays. 



Food. Grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, larvae, fruit, and berries. 



The name ptirisorum is associated with interesting desert can} r ons 

 whose wide-sloping sides are covered with stones, agaves, dasylirions, 

 yuccas, and other arid thorn brush, and crowned with the fouquiera 

 whose widely spreading arms are silhouetted against the blue sky. 

 In the midst of a cactus wren's song, it may be, you will hear the 

 clear meadowlark-like note of the oriole. One that we found in such 



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a situation in New Mexico was a brilliant black and lemon adult in 

 a low juniper feeding a brood of dingy greenish yellow young who 

 looked like commoners in camp clothes beside a personage in broad- 

 cloth. Although his family w r ere grown and picking about feeding 

 themselves, their indulgent parent was diligently hunting caterpillars 

 for them, having time for only an occasional outburst of his beauti- 

 ful song. On the hills back of the Pecos River we often found pari- 

 sorum nests in the yuccas, sometimes in the same one with a w T hite- 

 necked raven's nest. They were generally hung under the sharp 

 drooping blades of the yucca and woven of fibers frayed from the 

 edges, of yucca leaves. 



In the Chisos Mountains, Mr. Bailey often found the orioles feed- 

 ing among the flowers of a giant agave, the greenish yellow color 

 of which they match in a suggestively protective manner. 



Subgenus Pendulinus. 



505. Icterus CUCUllatus sennetti Eidgw. SENNETT ORIOLE. 



Adult male. Back, wings, and tail black, the wings marked with white ; 

 rest of plumage deep cadmium yellow. Adult female : under parts dull or 

 pale gamboge, back and scapulars grayish. Male : length (skins) 7.40- 

 7.80, wing 3.17-3.30. tail 3.4(3-3.90. bill .78-.81. Female: length (skins) 

 7.00-7.50. wing 3.07-3.20. tail 3.30-3.48. bill .72-.7T. 



Distribution, From the lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas, south to 

 Mexico. 



In the narrow strip between the Rio Coloral and the Mexican line 

 in Texas, where the dense, thorny thickets are full of cactus and low 

 yucca trees, the Bennett oriole makes its home. Here, as we were 

 looking for the nest of a verdin one day, an oriole flew from under 

 the drooping spears of a yucca. On inspection we found one of the 



