NEVADA TOWHEE 593 



Winter range. — Winters in part in the breeding range and also south 

 to southeastern California (Potholes), northwestern Sonora (Sonoyta) 

 and southeastern Arizona (Huachuca and Chu'icahua mountains). 



Egg dates. — British Columbia: 30 records, Apr. 21 to July 8; 15 

 records, May 5 to June 2. 



PIPILO ERYTHROPHTHALMUS OREGONUS Bell 



Oregon Towhee 



PLATE 31 



Contributed by Oliver L. Austin, Jr. 



Habits 



The Oregon towhee is the darkest and least spotted of the western 

 complex of spotted-backed Pipilos. Ira N. Gabrielson and Stanley 

 G. Jewett (1940) consider it "one of the most common permanent 

 resident birds in western Oregon, where every rose thicket and ever- 

 green blackberry patch has its pair of Oregon Towhees. They are 

 present throughout the year so commonly that it is unusual to walk 

 along the bottom lands at any season without seeing a handsome 

 black and white and reddish fellow flu-ting his tail nervously as he 

 glides to a landing around a clump of bushes or hops about in the 

 thickets." 



In Washington State, Stanley G. Jewett, Walter P. Taylor, Wil- 

 liam T. Shaw, and John W. Aldrich (1953) say it "spends most of its 

 time in the shelter of the shrubbery of its humid environment. It is 

 found in the brush of abandoned clearings, along roadsides, in burns, 

 coastal gulches, and in swamps. Log heaps in timbered areas often 

 shelter it; and on Mt, Rainier towhees presumed to be of this sub- 

 species were observed in the azalea, mountain-ash, and huckleberry 

 brush." 



The same authors continue: 



Brown found a nest and 4 eggs in Kings County, June 29, 1909, and a nest and 

 3 eggs in Seattle on July 13, 1908. Dates for full sets of fresh eggs are as follows: 

 early, May 4, mean. May 17, late, June 20 * * * . Bowels reports a pair feeding 

 young in the nest at Gravelly Lake, Pierce County, August 21, 1933 * * * . 



Burleigh * * * says nests found by him were invariably sunk flush with the 

 ground, at times at the base of an old stub or small sapling, and were quite well 

 concealed by Oregon grape and clusters of ferns. Of 9 nests examined 7 held 3 

 eggs, two 4 eggs. Rathbun flushed a female from a nest on the ground in an 

 open spot among scattered tall firs, and alongside a path running through a dense 

 growth of salal. This nest was unusual in that it contained 5 eggs. On another 

 occasion Rathbun found a nest containing 2 eggs only, both heavily incubated. 

 Immature birds are commonly observed into September. 



A little patience enables the observer to watch the towhee as it forages among 

 the leaves in the shelter of the brush. It hops industriously over the ground, its 



