SONOMA THRASHER 411 



TOXOSTOMA REDIVIVUM SONOMAE Grinnell 

 SONOMA THRASHER 

 HABITS 



This northern race of the well known California thrasher is de- 

 scribed by Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1915) as "similar to T. r. redivimmi, 

 but size slightly greater and back, chest and sides less 'warm' in tone 

 of brown; similar to T. r. pasadenense, but size, especially of foot, 

 greater, and coloration throughout darker, less ashy." 



He says that it is a "fairly common resident of the Upper Sonoran 

 zone around the upper end of the Sacramento Valley and thence west 

 through the inner coast ranges north of San Francisco Bay." It 

 probably intergrades with the more southern race in the vicinity of 

 Placer County. It has been recorded from Shasta, Marin, Mendocino, 

 and Solano Counties. 



I cannot find in the literature, or in contributed notes, anything 

 to indicate that this thrasher differs at all in its habits from the 

 closely related California thrasher, which has been so well treated 

 by Mr. Woods. 



In the Lassen Peak region, Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) 

 found this thrasher living mainly in the scrub-oak chaparral. One 

 nest was found in an isolated clump of buckbrush, and other nests 

 were seen in clumps of scrub oaks. 



The eggs are indistinguishable from those of the California 

 thrasher. The measurements of 25 eggs average 31.2 by 21.5 milli- 

 meters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 33.1 by 22.2, 31.9 

 by 22.7, 29.2 by 21.2, and 31.3 by 19.5 millimeters. 



TOXOSTOMA LECONTEI LECONTEI Lawrence 

 LECONTE'S THRASHER 

 Plates 81-83 



HABITS 



For many years after its discovery LeConte's thrasher was con- 

 sidered one of the rarest and most elusive of the desert birds. Dr. 

 Edgar A. Mearns (1886) gives a brief historical sketch of it, from 

 which I quote as follows : 



"This Thrasher is at once the oldest and least known species of 

 the genus in Arizona. Originally described by George N. Lawrence 

 in 1851, from a specimen taken at the mouth of the Gila Kiver, near 

 Fort Yuma, it was not again met with by naturalists for a decade, 

 when Dr. Cooper added it to the avifauna of California, stating that 

 it was not uncommon in certain portions of the route between the 

 Colorado Valley and the coast slope of California. * * * In 1865, 

 Dr. Coues took a fourth specimen, in the month of September, near 



