252 U.S. NATIONAL MTJSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part i 



As its name indicates, this is a bird of the mountains, of the moun- 

 tains of Mexico and ranging as far north as southern Arizona. The 

 habitat it seeks in its American home is pine and fir forest. If any 

 migration occurs from the Mexican populations of the Sierra Madre 

 Occidental northward into Arizona, we have as yet no records to 

 prove it. 



Spring. — Roger Tory Peterson writes of his journey from Mexico 

 to the Chiricahua Mountains (1955): 



Before us on the horizon, as we crossed the Arizona line, rose the big blue 

 Chiricahuas * * *. There they were, in the crystal morning light, rising like a 

 massive blue island from the sea of the desert. And an island it was, in truth, 

 part of an archipelago composed of a dozen similar ranges. * * * 



And, like islands, their climate, plants, their animals are as diflPerent from 

 those of their surroundings as though they were isolated by the sea * * ♦. 



A modest sign on the highway pointed the way to Portal, eight miles up on 

 a gravel road that crossed the outwash plain. This frontier hamlet, well named, 

 Btood at the entrance of Cave Canyon, a dramatic canyon guarded by unscal- 

 able cliffs of heroic size * * *. 



Portal is about 5,000 feet above sea level. It was here that H. H. 

 Kimball found this grosbeak on the last day of March in the spring 

 of 1926 (collection of Max Minor Peet). Allan Brooks came upon 

 the bird at 9,000 feet, far above the little mining town of Paradise, 

 on Apr. 25, 1913. In the same general locality but at an altitude 

 of 5,000 feet, Austin Paul Smith found it April 26, 1917. Kimball 

 also collected the bird in the Paradise region, although far above 

 the town, in April 1924, in the area in which he collected adults in 

 the summer of the same year. 



In the Huachucas E. C. Jacot collected the bird in April 1922. 

 Brandt (1951) has written of being in these mountains in early May. 

 Among the big pines he saw a flock of Mexican crossbUls and then 

 discovered another bird identified by its showy, yellow pattern as 

 "the Mexican Evening Grosbeak, another of those unpredictable 

 forms from south of the border that are known to display themselves 

 occasionally in these fruitful Arizona mountains. * * * The adult 

 male is indeed a gorgeous creature and in collections is one of the 

 rarest of our grosbeaks." 



In the Santa Catalina Mountains Monson (1952b) found up to 

 15 birds on February 29 and again on March 25. In March of the 

 same year J. A. Munro found evening grosbeaks at Bear Canyon at 

 an altitude of 6,200 feet and took one pair whose clear dark "Nile 

 green" bills indicated that they were coming into breeding condition. 



Nesting. — In May 1904, F. C. Willard journeyed to the Santa 

 Catalina Mountains with O. W. Howard. It had been an unusually 

 dry winter and spring, and Willard (1910) writes: 



