112 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 paet i 



Lower California. It is mostly a bird of the Upper Sonoran Life Zone 

 but may range into the Lower Sonoran and Transition Zones. It has 

 been found from near sea level on the coast and at Furnace Creek in 

 Death Valley to elevations of 10,000 feet in the Sierras and 7,000 to 

 8,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Tolerant of wide 

 ranges of humidity and temperature, it breeds in the humid coast belt 

 and the desert mountains of the Great Basin region, as well as in many 

 intermediate localities. In the more arid regions it is commonly 

 restricted to the brushy cover around springs or streams or to culti- 

 vated or irrigated areas. Grinnell and Miller (1944) describe its 

 habitat as follows: 



In breeding season, clumps of bushes, broken chaparral, weed thickets and other 

 low vegetation on hillsides or in and about water courses, but not usually over 

 water or damp ground. * * * Diversity of plant growth and discontinuity of 

 masses of it seem important as well as the presence of a low dense tangle used 

 normally for nesting. Foraging takes place in this cover, or in tall grass, but song 

 posts are to varying degrees above it — even in the tips of tall trees if these are 

 present. 



In winter the lazuli bunting is found in Mexico as far south as Cape 

 St. Lucas on the Pacific coast and the Valley of Mexico in the interior. 

 It is absent from the Atlantic coast of Mexico. It occurs in Lower 

 California in fair numbers as a spring and fall migrant, is present in 

 the summer in the northwest costal district where it probably breeds, 

 and in winter in the Cape region. Here as elsewhere it frequents the 

 willow association along ravines in the vicinity of seepages. 



In California this species occurs as a migrant in all sections of the 

 State and breeds throughout the State except on the coastal islands and 

 the Lower Sonoran deserts of the southeast. It breeds from sea level 

 in the coastal regions to at least 7,500 feet in the Warner Mountains 

 and 8,000 feet on Mount Pinos. After breeding it may be found at 

 even higher elevations — 9,000 feet at Warren Fork of Leevining Creek 

 in Yosemite National Park, and at 10,000 feet, the highest record for 

 the species, in Coffee Mill Meadow of Kings Canyon National Park 

 where J. S. Dixon (1943) saw a male in a chinquapin thicket in the 

 summer of 1941. 



In Arizona it has been found at elevations ranging from 3,500 feet 

 to 5,400 feet both as a spring and a fall migrant. 



In Nevada, W. P. Taylor (1912) found it characteristically in the 

 Upper Sonoran and the Lower Transition Zones, never far from the 

 mountain stream association of plants where he observed it in the 

 quaking aspens, wild rose and gooseberry thickets, willows and alders, 

 as well as in the sagebrush of the adjacent deserts. It was most 

 common at elevations of 5,000 to 7,000 feet. 



W. H. Behle (1944) lists it as a summer resident throughout Utah, 

 commonly found in the lowland thickets and occasionally in similar 



