WESTERN MOCKINGBIRD 317 



houses, a bit of lawn to feed on and vines or thick bushes in which to 

 nest." 



Territory. — Harold and Josephine R. Michener (1935) made an 

 intensive study of the territorial behavior of a number of western 

 mockingbirds in the immediate vicinity of their home in Pasadena, 

 Calif., covering a period of over a year, from January 1, 1933, to 

 February 15, 1934. Their interesting report covers 44 pages in The 

 Condor, to which the reader is referred, for space will permit the in- 

 clusion of only a few extracts here. The birds were trapped and 

 marked with colored bands, for identification. The area under ob- 

 servation is a lot, 100 by 317 feet, within a mile of the center of Pasa- 

 dena and surrounded by the city on all sides. 



The territories occupied by the five mated pairs varied from ap- 

 proximately 3,750 to 60,000 square feet in an environment that was 

 especially favorable ; probably average territories elsewhere are much 

 larger. They think that the birds have two general types of terri- 

 tories, summer territories and winter territories ; 



The summer and winter territories of an individual or a pair may or may not 

 be identical areas. The summer territory is the family home, held and defended 

 by the male and occupied solely by him until the female joins him, unless his mate 

 of the previous year has remained with him. 



The female rarely takes part in the defense of the summer territory. 



The winter territory centers about the food supply and is defended by both the 

 male and the female, in case the pair remain together, or by the lone male or 

 female occupant. * * * The defense of the winter territories seems much 

 more vigorous than that of the summer territories. This may be because the 

 invaders in the winter are much more numerous than in summer and because the 

 territory holder has many other things to do in the summer while in winter the 

 defense of the food supply is the only important activity. 



The so-called "dance," so well described under the courtship of the 

 eastern mockingbird, and the display, which I refer to below, may 

 both be used as part of the boundary defense demonstration, as 

 strongly suggested by Mrs. Laskey (MS.). I doubt if it is often nec- 

 essary for the birds to enter into actual physical combat ; the demon- 

 stration is generally sufficient warning to the trespasser. Even the 

 song may be all that is necessary. 



Courtship. — On April 21, 1929, 1 saw what I believe was a courtship 

 display. A mockingbird, presumably a male, was running along on 

 our lawn at Pasadena, flirting his spread tail up and down, making a 

 soft cooing sound and occasionally lifting both his wings high above 

 his back and spreading them so as to show the conspicuous white areas. 



At San Diego, on June 21, 1929, Frank F. Gander (1931) saw a 

 pair of western mockingbirds in copulation. The female was feeding 

 on the ground under some shrubbery. He says : 



The male was singing from the top of a tall flagpole nearby. Suddenly he 

 dropped from his perch. In full song, he shot down into the shrubbery about 



