548 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part i 



A.O.U. Check-List puts it. Briefly, the arguments offered by Sibley 

 are that the rufous cap, white throat, yellow carpal edge, olive-green 

 upper parts, and other color characters of this towhee are also found 

 in the collared towhee (Pipilo ocai) of Mexico, and that the relatively 

 long, pointed wing of the greentail is simply correlated with its 

 migratory habit. As described earlier (see especially Sibley, 1950), 

 extensive hybridization occurs between the collared towhee and the 

 rufous-sided towhee (P. erythrophthalmus) , leaving little doubt as to 

 their being properly considered congeneric. Consequently, "it 

 remains only to demonstrate the close relationship between P. ocai 

 and the Green-tailed Towhee in order to show the latter also to be a 

 Pipilo'' (Sibley, 1955). As well as in adult color pattern, in habitat 

 preferences, songs and call-notes, and color of eggs, as indicated by 

 Sibley (1955), and in juvenal color pattern, as noted by Parkes (1957), 

 there is an essential similarity between these two species. Sibley 

 adds that "if one is to disagree with this proposal he must justify 

 the inclusion of the brown towhees [P. fuscus, rutilus, and aberti] in 

 Pipilo because they are without doubt less closely related to the type 

 species, Pipilo erythrophthalmus, than is the Green-tailed Towhee." 

 These reasons for placing the greentail in Pipilo are weighty and 

 should be convincing to many. Even so, a measure of caution is still 

 in order. I feel that additional characteristics, such as skeletal 

 and other anatomical features and types of behavior, need to be 

 investigated before students can best piece together, on the basis of 

 all the potentially available, neontological evidence, the phyletic 

 relationships in the towhee group. Only then can the best possible 

 natural classification be achieved. 



The green-tailed towhee breeds in montane and high plateau 

 regions in the western United States, from Oregon and Montana to 

 southern California and western Texas. It winters from more 

 southerly parts of California, Arizona, and Texas south into Mexico. 

 A short, sprightly introduction to it in its native haunts is provided by 

 Kalph Hoffmann (1927): 



"A cat-like call, pee-you-wee is often heard in summer from the 

 low bushes on open mountain-sides or high sage-brush plains east of 

 the Sierras or Cascades. Presently a bird with reddish hrovm cap 

 mounts to the top of some bush and utters a lively song. The singer 

 has a white throat, which shows like a bit of cotton when the notes are 

 poured forth. The Green-tailed Towhee is an active bird, slipping 

 in and out of the sage or deer-brush, inquisitive about intruders and 

 not shy." 



Among 39 records of specific altitudes at which breeding indi- 

 viduals or populations have been recorded, some of the lowest points 

 were 2,500 feet (Nevada County, Calif.), 3,450 feet (Siskiyou County, 



