BIRD BIOGRAPHIES 



to southern Florida. He resembles his northern 

 I cousin except that his eyes are white, and that 



his wings and tail have less white on them. There 

 are several species of towhee in our western 

 states. 



BEFORE the trees are in leaf, there appears in our 

 April woods a lively, trim, and attractive bird who 

 makes himself known in no uncertain manner. So bus- 

 tling and energetic is he, so cheerful and self-confident, 

 without unpleasant aggressiveness, that he always attracts 

 attention. The uninitiated frequently call him an oriole, 

 whom he does resemble in having a glossy black head, 

 throat, back, and tail, and white markings on his wings, 

 with reddish-brown like that of the orchard oriole on his 

 sides; but there the resemblance ceases, for the oriole has 

 in addition a reddish-brown breast, belly, and rump. 

 Then, too, the towhee arrives early, before larvae have 

 hatched; the oriole arrives in May, when swarms of in- 

 sects have begun their work of fertilizing blossoms of fruit 

 trees. 



Professor Beal writes of the towhee as follows: "After 

 snow has disappeared in early spring, an investigation of 

 the rustling so often heard among the leaves near a fence 

 or in a thicket will frequently disclose a towhee at work 

 scratching for his dinner after the manner of a hen; and 

 in these places and along the sunny border of woods, old 

 leaves will be found overturned where the bird has been 

 searching for hibernating beetles and larvae. The good 

 which the towhee does in this way can hardly be overesti- 

 mated, since the death of a single insect at this time, be- 

 fore it has had an opportunity to deposit its egg, is equiv- 



[162] 



