PALMER'S THRASHER 395 



their sickle-like beaks ; or casting aside the mould and parched soil with 

 nervous sidewise thrusts, in search of grubs. On those parts of the 

 desert, too, affected by the birds the ground usually shows plentiful 

 signs of their probing." 



Mr. Brown (1892) says that "they press their tails firmly against 

 the ground, after the manner of the woodpecker ; if the earth be dry 

 and sandy, a perfect fusillade of dirt is kept up. The force of the blow 

 is downward and toward the body, but occasionally to clean the sand 

 out they strike sideward blows, and dirt flies for a foot in all directions." 



Behavior. — One cannot watch a Palmer's thrasher long without be- 

 ing impressed with its decided resemblance to the brown thrasher in 

 all its movements. It runs rapidly or hops lightly over the ground, 

 or skims swiftly through the air from one low bush to another, seldom 

 rising high in the air, and, if pursued, flies away or dashes to seclusion 

 in the thickest shubbery it can find. Its method of foraging on the 

 ground is much like that of our eastern bird, as it tosses the leaves and 

 litter aside with its bill while hunting for food under trees and bushes. 



Mr. Engels (1940) writes: 



The gait of the Palmer thrasher is not smooth, but rather jerky; the bird 

 gives the appearance of being set back on its haunches and of being stifE legged. 

 The jerkiness of the gait is most in evidence when the bird is moving directly 

 toward or directly away from the observer ; the stiff-leggedness and the peculiar 

 set of the body on the legs are best observed in profile. I do not mean to intimate 

 that the Palmer thrasher is not at ease on the ground, but only that in its 

 walking and running its action is not so smooth as that of other thrashers. * * * 



The Palmer thrasher is entirely like the brown and the Bendire in frequency of 

 flight. In 16 days on the Arizona deserts in 1936, I saw at least 100 Palmer 

 thrashers and followed many of them. Their reaction to pursuit was invariably 

 the same ; they moved away by flying, at a good height and often for rather long 

 distances. On a cut-over mesquite flat one bird was followed for more than a 

 half-mile, and in the course of its flight it entered and left four or five mesquites 

 in succession without once descending to the ground. Brooding birds were re- 

 peatedly flushed from their nests in the choUa cactus ; they always left on the 

 wing and continued in flight to some distant perch. 



Some observers have referred to this thrasher as shy, and it may be 

 so in its wilderness haunts, though we did not notice that it was any 

 more shy than the average wild bird ; and in the defense of its nest and 

 young it is sometimes quite bold and fearless. About the ranches, 

 where it is not molested, it even becomes rather tame. Mr. Oilman 

 (1909) says: 



The Palmer and Bendire seem naturally much tamer than the others and come 

 about homes quite frequently. All summer I placed pieces of watermelon in the 

 shade of a school building — vacation time and no children about — and both these 

 thrashers came freely and ate with a family of scolding Cactus Wrens. But never 

 a Crissal appeared. The Palmer and Crissal dug in the garden and also ate wheat 

 planted nearby, and frequented the barn and well. They would come and drink 

 from an iron kettle placed on the ground for the chickens. At the Casa Grande 

 ruins the custodian had a large can placed so water from it dripped onto a milk 



