74 HISTORY OF THE CRISSAL THRASHER 



IT only remains to give some account of the Crissal Thrasher 

 to finish our notice of the interesting genus Harporhynchus. 

 I have never seen the bird alive ; but, to judge from the meagre 

 published records respecting it, its general habits are in no 

 wise peculiar, and may be passed over without further com- 

 ment. The species was not discovered until about 1858, when 

 a specimen obtained by himself near Mimbres was described 

 by Dr. T. 0. Henry, of the Army — a zealous naturalist, whose 

 untimely recall from this world's duties cut short a career which 

 opened in full promise of usefulness and honor. Shortly after- 

 ward,^ in 1863, a second specimen was procured by Mr. H. B. 

 Mollhausen, while associated with Dr. C. B. R. Kennedy on 

 the natural history work of one of the Pacific Eailroad surveys, 

 under command of Lieutenant Whipple; this was taken at Fort 

 Yuma. Quite recently, a specimen was taken by a different 

 person at Saint George, in Southern Utah, June 8, 1870. These 

 three extreme points give us the angles of a triangle by which 

 the distribution of the species, as far as present knowledge 

 goes, may be plotted. It will be observed that the range is a 

 little more extended than that of LeConte's, Bendire's, or 

 Palmer's Thrasher, with all three of which the Crissal Thrasher 

 is associated in portions of Arizona ; and we are led to infer 

 that when the " topography" of the other three species is fully 

 determined, it will be found no less extensive. For there is 

 nothing peculiar in the economy or requirements of any one of 

 the four in comparison with the rest. 



Though the nidification of the Crissal Thrasher is substan- 

 tially the same as that of its associates just mentioned, its egg is 

 entirely different, and unique in the genus, as far as known, in 

 being whole-colored. It measures an inch and an eighth or a 

 seventh in length by a little over four fifths of an inch in 

 breadth, and is of a rich emerald-green color, with a shade of 

 blue, entirely free from markings — at least, such is the case in 

 all the specimens which have been examined by naturalists. 

 The nest and eggs appear to have been first collected by the 

 person who found the bird at Saint George; though the 

 earliest published account of them was a short note which I 

 communicated to the " American Naturalist" in 1872, giving 

 the results of Lieutenant Bendire's observations respecting the 

 species, made at Tucson. According to Dr. Brewer, the Saint 

 George nest was an oblong flat structure, with very slight de- 

 pression, consisting of coarse sticks loosely put together, with 



