HABITS OF THE PLUMBEOUS BUSH-TIT 127 



bel's authority for its abundance " both in the llocky Mount- 

 ains and throughout Oaliforuia ". But Dr. Gambel, it will be 

 recollected, Avrote some years before the Plumbeous Bush-tit 

 was discriminated from the other, and evidently overlooked 

 those slight but nice diiferences which are impressed upon the 

 bird in the Rocky Mountain region by some climatic or other 

 influences not yet understood. The Least Bush- tit, in fact, could 

 not be made "exceedingly abundant" in this region. The 

 habitat of each is correctly given in the technical portion of 

 the work to which the biographical paragraph in question was 

 contributed. 



The Plumbeous Bush tit was discovered by Dr. C. B. R. 

 Kennerly, then naturalist of Lieutenant Whipple's Surveying- 

 Expedition, and afterward of the Northwest Boundary Com- 

 missiou, whose early death, under very deplorable circumstances, 

 left a gap in the ranks of western explorers. He found it on 

 the Colorado Ohiquito and Bill Williams' Rivers ; and, for a 

 long time after the publication of the species by Professor 

 Baird, its rauge was supposed to be confined to Arizona. Mr. 

 C. E. Aiken, who has dealt very successfully with the bird- 

 fauna of Colorado, found it in that Territor}-, where it was 

 occasionally seen during the winter in the eastern foothills of 

 the mountains. It has been traced west to the Humboldt 

 3Iountains, Xevada, where Mr. Ridgway observed it in abund- 

 ance, and north to Green River, Wjoming, where Mr. James 

 Stevensou, the zealous and faithful member of Dr. Hayden's 

 Survey, secured specimens. Its southern limit is unknown : I 

 have seen no jNIexican quotations. To what extent, if at all, it 

 is migratory, I have not ascertained, but I am inclined to think 

 it is a resident species wherever found, as is certainly the case 

 within the area of the Colorado. Considering the whole coun- 

 try, from the Rocky Mountains to to the Pacific, the respective 

 ranges of the Plumbeous and Least Bush-tit are nearly com- 

 l)Iemeutary, though the latter extends further north on the 

 Pacific coast than the former is known to do in the interior. 



These queer little elfs were very numerous about Fort Whip- 

 ple, where I saw them all the year round, and learned as much 

 about them as any one seems to know. Though living in a 

 coniferous region, they avoided the pine forests, keeping in 

 the oak scrub of the hillsides, and the undergrowth along the 

 creek bottoms and through the numerous ravines that make 

 down the mountain sides. They endured, without apparent 



