550 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 paRT i 



say J. Grinnell and A. H. Miller (1944), the "spring movement occurs 

 in April, lasting well through May in the desert mountains." A, A. 

 Saunders (1911) reports that in Gallatin County, Mont., the species 

 appears "in the latter part of May". 



The transients often move through the mountains; less often, per- 

 haps, they pass through relatively low country. In 1902, in the 

 Huachuca Moim tains of southern Arizona, H. S. Swarth (1904) reported 

 spring-migrant green tails "frequenting the lower canyons up to an 

 altitude of about 6000 feet." But the next year these birds were 

 unusually late in arriving (May 6) and "all that were seen were in 

 washes issuing from the canyons, specimens being taken a mile or 

 more from the mountains." It would seem that this change of 

 pattern might have been due to a retarded spring in 1903. In Utah 

 these birds are said to migrate "chiefly through the mountains, seldom 

 descending to streamside thickets in low altitudes (A. M. Woodbiu-y, 

 C. Cottam, and J. W. Sugden, 1949); in the same state, however, 

 W. H. Behle (1944) has referred to the species as a "transient in the 

 lowlands." 



Mr. Bent (MS.) writes: "We saw a part of [spring] migration in 

 southern Arizona on April 4, 1922; a valley near Bisbee was filled with 

 migrating birds, mainly western chipping sparrows, white-crowned 

 sparrows, and green-taUed towhees, all moving steadily northward." 

 Evidently it accomplishes much of its northward movement in day- 

 light hours. 



This towhee could, I believe, be classed as semihardy. On May 

 24, 1941, Robert T. Moore and Wendell Taber (MS.) watched a single 

 bird at 8,000 feet on Mount San Jacinto, in southern California, 

 under well-nigh wintry conditions and report: "The location was a 

 natural flat clearing in the dense yellow pine forest. Snow, hard- 

 packed, was between three and four feet deep, but ground was appear- 

 ing at the edges of a rushing brook which varied in width from five 

 to perhaps twenty-five yards. The wUlows were not yet in full leaf. 

 The towhee seemed perfectly at home and was apparently gleaning 

 food under the willows rather than along the ground bared by the 

 stream. A flight of but a few hundred yards would have taken the 

 bird to the precipitous drop to the snow-free slopes." 



An interesting sidelight on the vernal ecology of this bird is offered 

 by K. W. Kenyon (1947) in the following passage: 



The Green-tailed Towhee * * * is typically found on wooded mountain 

 sides and among the mesquites in the lowlands of the Cape district of Lower 

 California in winter. However, it appeared entirely out of place on a small 

 sandy and windswept islet in Scammon's Lagoon. One Green-tailed Towhee 

 lived a precarious existence on such an island near the camp of several Mexican 

 fishermen. It picked up the bits of food and drank the water the fishermen 

 offered it, becoming quite tame. The towhee was first observed in the area on 



