:::::C TWO BIRD- LOVERS IN MEXICO >*:.":::::: 



Northern Chewink in actions. PlpUo fuscus brought 

 us nearer to its special name, but not until later did we 

 learn that its common name was a literal translation — 

 Brown Towhee. While we were in Mexico, it was to 

 us " fipilo fusciis,^' which slipped behind the cactus 

 screen or skinnned up and over the adobe walls — more 

 mouse than bird. 



A closely related but much handsomer bird was the 

 Green-tailed Towhee, not a F'qjilo despite his name, 

 but intermediate structurally between the true towhees 

 and the group of White-throated Sparrows. It cer- 

 tainly reminded one of l)oth groups. Like the Brown 

 Towhee it kept to the weed tangles of the ditches where 

 it was easily watched as it fed on the small seeds and 

 the lesser grasshoppers. It is strikingly marked with 

 a rufous, almost red cap, and a wliite throat, grayish 

 ffreen above and briuliter iri'een on tlie winofs and tail, 

 A mewing note, like that of a Ked-eved Vireo, was the 

 most common utterance of this bird. 



Day after day tiny green-garbed warblers traversed 

 the ditches, confidiiiglv seeking tlieir diet of smallest 

 insects, within a few feet of us. W hat could they be? 

 We puzzled and puzzled over them in vain. At last 

 I secured one and we made sure of the identification, 

 — scientifically, IlpItiiiiifhojtJiila celafa hde.scois { Ridg- 

 way) ; commonly, the Lutescent Warbler. To my mind 

 a bird in the bush is worth a whole fiock in the skin 

 drawer, but the characters of modern classification 



«4 52 #* 



