466 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



mon throughout the year, a small proportion going south in winter. 

 Those that remain gather in large flocks, with the Long-tailed Grackles, 

 common Cowbirds, and Brewer's, Red-winged, and Yellow-headed 

 Blackbirds; they become very tame, and the abundance of food about 

 the picket-lines attracts them for miles around." 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — South-central Texas to eastern and north-central Mexico. 



Breeding range. — The red-eyed bronzed cowbird breeds from 

 south-central Texas (Eagle Pass, Lee County), and the Yucatan 

 Peninsula (Chichen Itza, San Felipe) south through Central America 

 to western Panama (Calobre, Chitra) ; west to Nuevo Leon (Galeana, 

 Linares) and eastern San Luis Potosi (Valles, Tamazunchale). 



Winter range. — Winters throughout most of breeding range 

 except north only to southern Texas (Edinburg, Aransas Pass . 



Family Thraupidae: Tanagers 



PIRANGA LUDOVICIANA (Wilson) 



Western Tanager 



Plate 30 



HABITS 



For many years after its discovery this brilliantly colored bird 

 was known as the Louisiana tanager, as indicated in Wilson's scientific 

 name, which it still bears. The name seems wholly inappropriate 

 today, for it is only a rare migrant in what we now know as the State 

 of Louisiana. But, at the time of its discovery, what was then known 

 as the Louisiana Purchase, or the Territory of Louisiana, extended 

 from the Mississippi River to the Continental Divide and northward 

 to British Columbia. As the bird was widely distributed over much 

 of that territory, the name seemed more suitable. 



The first specimens were obtained by members of the Lewis and 

 Clark party on their journey across the northwestern territories of this 

 country, and the frail specimens that they obtained were figured and 

 named by Wilson. Later, Townsend and Nuttall obtained some bet- 

 ter specimens, from which Audubon (1841, vol. 3) drew his beautiful 

 plate; Audubon quotes Nuttall as saying: 



"We first observed this fine bird in a thick belt of wood near Lori- 

 mer's Fork of the Platte, on the 4th of June, at a considerable distance 

 to the east of the first chain of the Rocky Mountains (or Black Hills), 

 so that the species in all probability continues some distance down the 

 Platte. We have also seen them very abundant in the spring, in the 

 forests of the Columbia, below Fort Vancouver. On the Platte they 



