352 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



CASSIDIX MEXICANUS PROSOPIDICOLA Lowery 



Mesquite Boat-Tailed Grackle 

 HABITS 



George H. Lowery, Jr. (1938), has given the above name to the large 

 grackles of this species that are found in the "Gulf Coast region of 

 central southern Texas, north to at least Port Lavaca, and south into 

 northeastern Mexico in the states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Le6n, and 

 Coahuila. In Texas it is closely associated with the range of the 

 mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa Torrey)." He gives as its subspecific 

 characters: "Resembling Cassidix mexicanus mexicanus (Gmelin) more 

 closely than any other form, but wing, tail, exposed culmen, and 

 tarsus shorter; male in color almost indistinguishable, but female 

 conspicuously different from C. m. mexicanus, the under parts being 

 decidedly lighter, ranging from Light Brownish Olive to Buffy Olive ; 

 also the pileum, sides of head and neck much lighter, tending toward 

 olive rather than brown." 



The separation of this subspecies removes the type race, Cassidix 

 mexicanus mexicanus, from our list, and the bird that has for so long 

 stood in our literature as the great-tailed grackle must now be called 

 the mesquite grackle, and restricts it to eastern and southern Mexico, 

 Central America and northwestern South America. However, papers 

 by Allan R. Phillips (1940), Laurence M. Huey (1942) and Lawrence 

 V. Compton (1947), to which the reader is referred for details, show 

 that boat-tailed grackles of the Cassidix mexicanus species have been 

 extending their ranges in the upper Rio Grande valley into New 

 Mexico and into southern Arizona. From correspondence in 1946 

 and 1947 with Phillips and Lowery, I infer that there is much still 

 to be learned as to the subspecies involved and their ranges. Roger T. 

 Peterson (1939) also reported grackles of this species breeding in New 

 Mexico. The species had been reported previously, as breeding in 

 New Mexico, by J. Stokley Ligon (1926). 



When I was in southern Texas, in 1923, I found the mesquite 

 grackle to be astonishingly abundant from Matagorda Bay to the Rio 

 Grande. It was unquestionably the most abundant bird all along the 

 coast, as well as the noisiest and most conspicuous, almost a nuisance 

 at times, especially in the heron rookeries. 



Dr. T. Gilbert Pearson (1921) says: "One of the most noticeable, 

 noisy, and abundant species of birds along the lower Texas coast is the 

 Great-tailed Grackle. It possesses an astonishing repertoire of 

 whistles, calls, and gutteral sounds and one sees or hears them every- 

 where. On islands surrounded by salt-water it is found and one may 



