590 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part i 



Casual records. — Casual in Nebraska (North Platte) and Kansas 

 (Morton County). 



Egg dates. — California: 7 records, April 24 to June 7. 



PIPILO ERYTHROPHTHALMUS GAIGEI Van Tyne and Sutter 



Texas Towhee 

 Contributed by Keith L. Dixon 



Habits 



The rufous-sided towhee of western Texas was separated under the 

 name Pipilo maculatus gaigei by Van Tyne and Sutton in 1937 during 

 their avifaunal studies in Brewster County, Tex. The type locality 

 of this subspecies, which they named in honor of Frederick M. Gaige, 

 is "southeast of Boot Spring, 6800 feet" in the Chisos Mountains. 



In voice and behavior, the rufous-sided towhees occupying the 

 mountain ranges of east-central and southeastern New Mexico, 

 western Texas, and northern Coahuila appear to differ in no important 

 respects from other populations of the species. For the most part, 

 these birds have been reported from forested areas above 6,000 feet, 

 but they are limited either to wooded areas with a brushy understory 

 or to rather dense shrub communities. A feature common to the 

 places I have seen them is the presence of clumps of shrubby canopy 

 from one to several feet above the ground and leaf litter on the surface 

 of the ground. In the Chisos Mountains of Texas, such cover is 

 provided by a variety of shrubs, including Rhus trilobata, Salvia regla, 

 and Cercocarpus eximius, as well as the oaks, Quercus grisea and 

 Q. emoryi. On a slope west of the Laguna in the Chisos Mountains 

 in late July 1955, this towhee was found with black-chinned sparrows 

 (SpizeUa atrogularis) and Bewick's wrens (Thryomanes hewickii) in 

 a shrub growth which included squaw bush (Rhus trilobata), silk tassel 

 bush {Garrya lindheimeri) , scrub oak {Quercus intricata), and Viguiera 

 stenoloba. 



The distribution range of this form, according to Van Tyne 

 and Sutton (1937), extends northward to the vicinity of Cabra 

 Springs in east-central New Mexico. In that area, some 30 miles 

 north of Santa Rosa, Vernon and Florence M. Bailey found this towhee 

 in the oak brush understory of yellow pine timber at 7,400 feet 

 elevation m June 1903 (F. M. Bailey, 1910). The form is known 

 from the Capitan and Guadalupe mountains of New Mexico and also 

 from the latter range in Texas, from the Davis (A. P. Smith, 1917) 

 and Chisos mountains of Texas, and the Sierra del Carmen of Coahiula 

 (A. H. Miller, 1955a). Van Tyne and Sutton's report (1937) of 

 specimens of gaigei taken in late May on Mount Ord and the Glass 



