SOOTY WREN 201 



good range of them they will casually hop down into the lower cactus, and it 

 is very hard indeed to make them show themselves again. If it is in a low 

 bush that they disappear, no amount of trampling will bring a bird forth, but 

 as soon as one steps off the bush, out he pops and away to another one. I shot 

 a juvcnal with fully grown tail, April 2, 1915, and from then on the youngsters 

 were not rare. The eggs have evidently never been discovered, but I believe 

 that the nest is invariably built in the center of a dense patch of cactus. "While 

 I was trying to remove a dead bird from such a place, on March 29, and smashing 

 the cactus as I went, I uncovered an unfinished nest, probably pertaining to 

 this species. It was wedged under and between cactus leaves some 8 inches 

 above the ground, a 3-inch ball formed of soft fiber, and with the entrance on 

 one side. Two days later when I returned, some little lining had been added, 

 but the situation had beeu so disturbed that it was deserted before eggs were 

 laid. 



THRYOMANES BEWICKII CHARIENTURUS Oberhoher 



SOOTY WREN 



HABITS 



This is the wren that Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1927b) described as the 

 race inhabiting "the San Quintin subfaunal district of northwestern 

 Lower California." It ranges south to about latitude 30°. Dr. Grin- 

 nell named it Thryomanes hewickii carbonarius, sooty Bewick wren, 

 and described it as "similar to Thryomanes hewickii charientuinis 

 Oberholser (from western San Diego County, Calif.) , but bill slightly 

 smaller, and coloration grayer, more slaty (rather than brown), in 

 many respects, as follows : bill, tarsus, toes and claws blackish, with 

 no tinge of light brown ; sides of neck, sides of body, and flanks clearer 

 gray ; top of head and whole dorsum darker, less warmly, brown ; dark 

 portions of webs of all flight feathers darker, more slaty." 



But this first name for the race did not stand long, for Dr. Grinnell 

 (1928) discovered that a shift of names was necessary. He found that 

 the type of charienturus came from "Nachoguero Valley, in extreme 

 northern Lower California a few miles southwest from Jacumba, San 

 Diego County, Upper California. Fresh fall examples now at hand 

 from exactly that locality show themselves to be, not as I had hereto- 

 fore assumed they would be, of the San Diegan district race, but almost 

 indistinguishable from the San Pedro Martir race. Hence it becomes 

 necessary to use the name charienturus for the 'Sooty Bewick Wren' 

 of the San Pedro Martirs and to invent a new name for the race of 

 the San Diegan district." 



This shift may be a bit confusing and therefore unfortunate, but it 

 was perfectly logical and proper. I cannot find that anything distinc- 

 tive has been published on the habits of this subspecies. 



There is a set of six eggs of this wren in the Doe collection, taken 

 by N. K. Carpenter, in the Nachoguero Valley, on April 27, 1937. The 

 nest was in a bird box, 10 feet up in a live-oak tree, made of grass and 

 twigs, and lined with snakeskin and feathers. 



